{"title":"Complicating Conformity","authors":"Marie-Amélie George","doi":"10.1017/S0738248022000670","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In the fall of 1989, the queer community became embroiled in a fierce debate over whether to press for marriage rights. Two attorneys from Lambda Legal, a leading gay and lesbian rights organization, set out the competing considerations in the pages of Out/Look, a community magazine. Tom Stoddard, the then-executive director, argued that the movement should prioritize marriage rights because that strategy provided the surest path to equality. Paula Ettelbrick, Lambda's Legal Director, disagreed. She conceded that marriage provided “the ultimate form of acceptance” and “an insider status of the most powerful kind.” That fact, however, was the problem. Gays and lesbians, she argued, should not be focused on assimilating to the mainstream, but rather should pursue justice for those who were different.","PeriodicalId":17960,"journal":{"name":"Law and History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Law and History Review","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0738248022000670","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In the fall of 1989, the queer community became embroiled in a fierce debate over whether to press for marriage rights. Two attorneys from Lambda Legal, a leading gay and lesbian rights organization, set out the competing considerations in the pages of Out/Look, a community magazine. Tom Stoddard, the then-executive director, argued that the movement should prioritize marriage rights because that strategy provided the surest path to equality. Paula Ettelbrick, Lambda's Legal Director, disagreed. She conceded that marriage provided “the ultimate form of acceptance” and “an insider status of the most powerful kind.” That fact, however, was the problem. Gays and lesbians, she argued, should not be focused on assimilating to the mainstream, but rather should pursue justice for those who were different.
期刊介绍:
Law and History Review (LHR), America"s leading legal history journal, encompasses American, European, and ancient legal history issues. The journal"s purpose is to further research in the fields of the social history of law and the history of legal ideas and institutions. LHR features articles, essays, commentaries by international authorities, and reviews of important books on legal history. American Society for Legal History