7 - More Perfect Unions

Summary

Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, same-sex couples had become visible as partners and parents, as well as integral members of straight families. This chapter demonstrates how these previous victories on behalf of the queer family made marriage equality possible. When the movement for marriage equality began, advocates emphasized that allowing same-sex couples to marry was a matter of ensuring justice and equality. However, that argument failed to persuade decisionmakers, who instituted same-sex marriage bans around the country. Advocates were only able to gain legal ground when they began emphasizing how discrimination harmed longstanding, devoted same-sex couples, the children they raised, and the straight parents who loved them. They were able to stake these claims because gay- and lesbian-headed households already existed, thanks to years of family-centered strategies. Although marriage equality is the queer rights movement’s best-known success, it came as a postscript to decades of family-centered strategies.