LibGuides: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersexual, Asexual (LGBTQIA) Studies: Marriage Equality

Streaming Videos

To a More Perfect Union: U.S. v. Windsor A Pivotal Case in the Marriage Equality Movement
This documentary tells a story of love, marriage and a fight for equality. It chronicles two unlikely heroes, octogenarian Edie Windsor and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, on their quest for justice: Edie had been forced to pay a huge estate tax bill upon the death of her spouse because the federal government denied federal benefits to same-sex couples.

Deeply offended by this lack of recognition of her more than forty-year relationship with the love of her life, Edie decided to sue the United States government - and won.
Church & State
CHURCH & STATE is the story of the battle over the ruling that legalized gay marriage in Utah that shook the state and changed the nation.
The Campaign
THE CAMPAIGN follows the people behind California's historic No-on-8 campaign to defend same-sex marriage through exclusive behind the scenes footage, interwoven with the national history of same-sex relationship recognition since the 1950s.

Books in the Library

Same-Sex Marriage in the United States: The Road to the Supreme Court
Same-sex marriage has become on of the defining social issues in contemporary U.S. politics. State court decisions finding in favor of same-sex relationship equality claims have been central to the issue's ascent from nowhere to near the top of the national political agenda. Same-Sex Marriage in the United States tells the story of the legal and cultural shift, its backlash, and how it has evolved over the past 15 years.
License to Wed by Kimberly D. Richman
ISBN: 0814724191

Publication Date: 2013-01-01

A critical reader of the history of marriage understands that it is an institution that has always been in flux. It is also a decidedly complicated one, existing simultaneously in the realms of religion, law, and emotion. And yet recent years have seen dramatic and heavily waged battles over the proposition of including same sex couples in marriage. Just what is at stake in these battles? License to Wed examines the meanings of marriage for couples in the two first states to extend that right to same sex couples: California and Massachusetts. The two states provide a compelling contrast: while in California the rights that go with marriage--inheritance, custody, and so forth--were already granted to couples under the state's domestic partnership law, those in Massachusetts did not have this same set of rights. At the same time, Massachusetts has offered civil marriage consistently since 2004; Californians, on the other hand, have experienced a much more turbulent legal path. And yet, same-sex couples in both states seek to marry for a variety of interacting, overlapping, and evolving reasons that do not vary significantly by location. The evidence shows us that for many of these individuals, access to civil marriage in particular--not domestic partnership alone, no matter how broad--and not a commitment ceremony alone, no matter how emotional--is a home of such personal, civic, political, and instrumental resonance that it is ultimately difficult to disentangle the many meanings of marriage. This book attempts to do so, and in the process reveals just what is at stake for these couples, how access to a legal institution fundamentally alters their consciousness, and what the impact of legal inclusion is for those traditionally excluded.