Issues in Legal Scholarship

Single-Sex Marriage

Inaugurated January 2004

Introduction

GUEST EDITORS

ROBERT COOTER, University of California, Berkeley
AARON EDLIN, University of California, Berkeley
WILLIAM ESKRIDGE, Yale University

Two recent events have brought the issue of same-sex marriage to a head. In November of 2003, the Massachussetts Supreme Judicial Court decided in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that

…barring an individual from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution.

On February 12, 2004, Mayor Gavin Newsom defied California law and ordered city staffers to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In response, President Bush has proposed a constitutional amendment banning such marriages. Given these events and the 2004 presidential campaign, scholars should quickly weigh in on these issues. To meet this need, ILS has organized this symposium by leading legal scholars who write on same-sex marriage from a variety of viewpoints.

- ROBERT COOTER, University of California, Berkeley
- AARON EDLIN, University of California, Berkeley
- WILLIAM ESKRIDGE, Yale University