Marriage Equality in State and Nation

While significant attention has been paid to the rationales employed by judges invalidating same-sex marriage bans, little has been done to consider how legislators viewed their commitment to advance marriage equality. This article argues that the advancement of same-sex marriage in the United States has been a quintessential popular constitutional movement. The piece undertakes a state-by-state analysis of the constitutionally-grounded arguments used in early state legislative efforts to support the enactment of marriage equality, relying on over 150 interviews and nearly 500 pages of interview transcripts conducted with legislators, governors, judges, activists, religious leaders, and key community stakeholders