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1 results

  • 1 - Legalizing Queer Life

  • from Part I - Queer Partners and Parents
  • Marie-Amélie George, Wake Forest University School of Law
  • Book:
    Family Matters
    Published online:
    27 May 2024
    Print publication:
    01 August 2024, pp 31-61

  • Summary

    Before gays and lesbians could claim their full rights as Americans, they needed to overcome a host of laws and legal practices that created an imposing barrier to reform. This chapter provides a brief overview of the antiqueer world of mid-century America, detailing the myriad laws and policies that kept gays and lesbians out of public life. It then examines how and why lawmakers began decriminalizing homosexuality, detailing the demise of sexual psychopath, consensual sodomy, and vagrancy laws. It argues that the key to these changes was not lawyers, legislators, or judges, but rather sociologists – more specifically, Alfred Kinsey. His research revealed that same-sex intimacy was far from aberrant, which undermined the assumption on which the laws were based. His work influenced the thinking of leading legal scholars and advocates, who pressed for law reform.