Carlos A. Ball, FROM THE CLOSET TO THE COURTROOM: FIVE LGBT RIGHTS LAWSUITS THAT HAVE CHANGED OUR NATION, Beacon Press, Forthcoming
Carlos Ball writes:
During the second half of the twentieth century, social movements in the United States increasingly turned to the courts to advance their causes. The LGBT rights movement has been no exception. Since the late 1970s, that movement and its lawyers have aggressively pursued a judicial strategy aimed at challenging laws and policies that discriminate against LGBT people.
My
book "From The Closet to the Courtroom: Five LGBT Rights Lawsuits That Have
Changed Our Nation" (Beacon Press, 2010) tells the human and legal stories
behind these leading gay rights cases: Braschi v. Stahl Associates (1989);
Nabozny v. Podlesny (1996); Romer v. Evans (1996); Baehr v. Lewin (1993); and
Lawrence v. Texas (2003).
I argue in my book that these five lawsuits
have played a crucial role in creating the necessary social and political
conditions that today provide LGBT people with the opportunity to lead lives
that are both open and dignified. In doing so, the lawsuits have compelled the
country to account for the interests and hopes of LGBT people.
A key
part of the story that I tell in my book is played by LGBT rights attorneys.
Over the last twenty years, no group of lawyers has helped to transform the
United States more than LGBT rights attorneys, and yet their collective
accomplishments have received relatively little attention. My book seeks to
remedy that by exploring how a band of largely unheralded civil rights lawyers
have attained remarkable legal victories through skill, creativity, and
perseverance.
Those interested in reading the Introduction to the book
can download this document here.
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