Judicial Regimes and Same-Sex Marriage: Enforcing Judicially Determined Personal Autonomy at the Expense of Majoritarian Democracy
27 Pages Posted: 7 Apr 2009 Last revised: 13 Aug 2010
Date Written: May 31, 2009
Abstract
In this article, the author discusses the Marriage Cases opinion issued by the California Supreme Court in May of 2008. In that decision, a majority of the justices of the California Supreme Court concluded that the California Constitution requires affording the designation of marriage to same-sex couples. Though the article focuses on California, the article is equally applicable to other opinions discussing same-sex marriage. The paper is quite timely in light of the recent decision concerning the validity of Proposition 8 and the federal challenge to Proposition 8. (The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the agency or the U.S.)
Keywords: marriage cases, proposition 8, same-sex marriage, judicial activism, perez, fourteenth amendment, equal protection, inherent in the people, california constitution, loving, varnum, kerrigan, lawrence, perry, schwarzenneger, goodridge
JEL Classification: K19
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation