Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial
Kenji Yoshino
Language: English
Pages: 400
ISBN: 0385348827
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A renowned legal scholar tells the definitive story of Hollingsworth v. Perry, the trial that will stand as the most potent argument for marriage equality
Speak Now tells the story of a watershed trial that unfolded over twelve tense days in California in 2010. A trial that legalized same-sex marriage in our most populous state. A trial that interrogated the nature of marriage, the political status of gays and lesbians, the ideal circumstances for raising children, and the ability of direct democracy to protect fundamental rights. A trial that stands as the most potent argument for marriage equality this nation has ever seen.
In telling the story of Hollingsworth v. Perry, the groundbreaking federal lawsuit against Proposition 8, Kenji Yoshino has also written a paean to the vanishing civil trial--an oasis of rationality in what is often a decidedly uncivil debate. Above all, this book is a work of deep humanity, in which Yoshino brings abstract legal arguments to life by sharing his own story of finding love, marrying, and having children as a gay man.
Intellectually rigorous and profoundly compassionate, Speak Now will stand as the definitive account of a landmark civil-rights trial.
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justly be called a “show trial,” in which a grandstanding Clarence Darrow asked William Jennings Bryan questions such as where Cain got his wife. The Perry trial bears a much closer resemblance to the 2005 trial in Kitzmiller v. Dover—often called Scopes II—where a court had to determine whether intelligent design was different from creationism. After a five-week trial in a Pennsylvania federal court in 2005, Judge John E. Jones (a George W. Bush appointee) issued a 139-page ruling finding that
Center for Lesbian Rights, July 8, 2009 (on file with author). “a little too much zeal”: Boies and Olson, Redeeming the Dream, 79. After Plessy v. Ferguson: Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). orchestrated its litigation: Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality, 2d ed. (New York: Knopf, 2004), 185–92. Missouri v. Gaines: Missouri v. Gaines, 305 U.S. 337 (1938). Supreme Court ruled for the plaintiffs: Sweatt v.
sit in different areas of the classrooms, libraries, and cafeterias. The Court also rejected this arrangement. At that point, graduate education was essentially integrated. Then, and only then, did the NAACP directly attack the constitutionality of “separate but equal” in Brown v. Board of Education. Such institutionally choreographed civil-rights litigation may no longer be possible. When rogue plaintiffs sought to disrupt the movement strategy, the NAACP told them to stand down. Almost without
Second, Judge Walker invited both sides to demonstrate the level of scrutiny that state discrimination based on sexual orientation should receive under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. In interpreting that clause, the Supreme Court has given certain classifications (such as race or sex) “heightened scrutiny,” which means groups that fall under those classifications get enhanced judicial protection. The Supreme Court has never formally decided whether discrimination based on
stronger if it became more inclusive. Instead, they focused on doing all they needed to do: dispatch the claim of harm. — Lee Badgett, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, testified in support of the plaintiffs’ argument that same-sex marriage would have no discernible effect on the institution. Badgett had written extensively on the social and economic consequences of same-sex marriage, including in her 2009 book, When Gay People Get Married. Under direct examination
