Family Matters

‘The legalization of same-sex marriage can only be understood as something that happened ‘fast’ by ignoring the critical history this book traces. Family Matters probes the ‘unknown decades’ of legal (and extra-legal) advocacy for LGBT families in the years before same-sex marriage. Among its many fascinating insights is the role that straight as well as gay families played. This is an expansive and important work of scholarship, and one that should be widely read.’ Margot Canaday, author of Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America‘Fluidly narrated and marvelously detailed, this is a history of ordinary people transforming law and culture bit by bit as they struggled to gain queer family rights. The book’s focus on the local and state level illuminates the surprising centrality of parent-child relationships in the gradual attainment of gay rights, long before marriage equality became possible.’ Nancy F. Cott, author of Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation‘Beginning with battles over the criminalization of queer life and ending with the recognition of same-sex marriage, this important and ambitious book tracks an extraordinary transformation in American law. Family Matters offers an incisive analysis of one of the most consequential shifts in the legal landscape of the last half-century.’ Regina Kunzel, author of In the Shadow of Diagnosis: Psychiatric Power and Queer Life

Marie-Amélie George is a legal scholar and historian whose work focuses on the LGBTQ+ rights movement. She is Associate Professor of Law at Wake Forest University.