This paper provides an overview of the reasons for and the use of anti-gay ballot initiatives during this decade to thwart efforts of gay rights advocates to allow same-sex marriage. After examining the role other political institutions have played, the author looks at why the initiative has...

Gay men and lesbian women were treated and handled in different ways within the Soviet Union. Under communism, lesbianism was considered as a psychological disorder requiring psychiatric treatment and hospitalization. Their male counterparts, if determined to be engaged in muzhelozhstvo were...

A lawsuit challenging California's gay marriage ban, Proposition 8, on 14th Amendment grounds, is headed to the Supreme Court. Justice Sotomayor's ascendancy notwithstanding, Justice Kennedy will be the Court's pivotal vote in this case. His opinion in Lawrence invalidated anti-sodomy statutes...

Did Barack Obama's successful candidacy for President in 2008 contribute to the passage of Florida's Amendment 2 by turning out newly registered African Americans who voted for Obama and then cast ballots in favor of constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage? If one looks at reportage...

Attitudes towards the legal recognition of same-sex relationships are not limited to the simple yes/no vote that takes place on most ballot initiatives. Some individuals vote against same-sex marriage while supporting alternative legal institutions such as civil unions and domestic partnerships....

The paper will discuss the effect of judicial policymaking on marriage equality and adoption by gay parents in the United States over the past two decades. It will focus on the importance of the court's perception of its role as a subordinate or coordinate policymaker in accomplishing the...

Continuity tends to characterize political attitudes (Page and Shapiro 1992) with parents tending to transmit their opinions to their offspring (Jennings and Niemi 1968, 1974). Given these orthodox conceptions, why have attitudes towards lesbians and gays liberalized in recent years? Using the...