Celebrate Pride: Recomendations for titles emphasing the legal aspects of the LGBTQIA+ rights movement.

Law and the gay rights story : the long search for equal justice in a divided democracy

Walter M. Frank

342.087 /Frank
Nonfiction, LGBTQ+

For much of the 20th century, American gays and lesbians lived in fear that public exposure might cause them to be fired, blackmailed, or even arrested. Today, they are enjoying an unprecedented number of legal rights and protections. Clearly, the tides have shifted, but what caused this enormous sea change? Here, Walter Frank offers an in-depth look at the court cases that were pivotal in establishing gay rights. But he also tells the story of those individuals who were willing to make waves by fighting for those rights, taking enormous personal risks at a time when the tide of public opinion was against them. Frank's accessible style brings complex legal issues down to earth but, as a former litigator, never loses sight of the law's human dimension and the context of the events occurring outside the courtroom. He pays special attention to the constitutional issues surrounding same-sex marriage and closely analyzes the two recent Supreme Court cases addressing the issue. While a strong advocate for gay rights, Frank also examines critiques of the movement, including some coming from the gay community itself. Comprehensive in coverage, the book explains the legal and constitutional issues involved in each of the major goals of the gay rights movement: a safe and healthy school environment, workplace equality, an end to anti-gay violence, relationship recognition, and full integration into all the institutions of the larger society, including marriage and military service. Drawing from extensive archival research and from decades of experience as a practicing litigator, Frank not only provides a vivid history, but also shows where the battle for gay rights might go from here.--From publisher description.

Love unites us : winning the freedom to marry in America

346.0168 /Cathcart
Nonfiction, LGBTQ+

"Victory may sometimes look like a sudden revolution when, in truth, it rests on years of struggle. The June 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges is a sweeping victory for the freedom to marry, but it was one step in a long process. Love Unites Us is the history of activists' passion and persistence in the struggle for marriage rights for same-sex couples in the United States, told in the words of those who waged the battle. Launching the fight for the freedom to marry was neither an obvious nor an uncontested strategy. To many activists, achieving marriage equality seemed far-fetched, but the skeptics were proved wrong. Proactive arguments in favor of love, family, and commitment were more effective than arguments that focused on rights and the goal of equality at work. Telling the stories of people who loved and cared for one another, in sickness and in health, cut through the antigay noise and moved people-not without backlash and not overnight, but faster than most activists and observers had ever imagined. With compelling stories from leading attorneys and activists including Evan Wolfson, Mary L. Bonauto, Jon W. Davidson, and Paul M. Smith, Love Unites Us explains how gay and lesbian couples achieved the right to marry"--

Equal before the law : how Iowa led Americans to marriage equality

Tom Witosky

306.848 /Witosky
Nonfiction, LGBTQ+

Love wins : the lovers and lawyers who fought the landmark case for marriage equality

Debbie Cenziper

306.848 /Cenziper
Nonfiction, LGBTQ+

"The inspiring true story of the lovers and lawyers behind one of the most important national civil rights victories in decades- the legalization of same-sex marriage in all fifty states"--

Stand by me : the forgotten history of gay liberation

Jim Downs

306.766 /Downs
Nonfiction, LGBTQ+

Despite the tremendous gains of the LGBT movement in recent years, the history of gay life in this country remains poorly understood. According to conventional wisdom, gay liberation started with the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village in 1969. The 1970s represented a moment of triumph--both political and sexual--before the AIDS crisis in the subsequent decade, which, in the view of many, exposed the problems inherent in the so-called "gay lifestyle". In Stand by Me, the acclaimed historian Jim Downs rewrites the history of gay life in the 1970s, arguing that the decade was about much more than sex and marching in the streets. Drawing on a vast trove of untapped records at LGBT community centers in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, Downs tells moving, revelatory stories of gay people who stood together--as friends, fellow believers, and colleagues--to create a sense of community among people who felt alienated from mainstream American life.

Stonewall uprising

DVD 306.766 Stonewall
Documentary

Explores the dramatic event that launched a worldwide rights movement. When police raided a Mafia-run gay bar in Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969, gay men and women did something they had not done before: they fought back. As the streets of New York erupted into violent protests and street demonstrations, the collective anger announced that the gay rights movement had arrived.

Sex and the constitution : sex, religion, and law from America's origins to the twenty-first century

Geoffrey R. Stone

306.709 /Stone
Nonfiction, LGBTQ+

A constitutional scholar traces the evolution of legal and moral codes that have attempted to legislate sexual behavior from the ancient world to today, citing the agitators, moralists, lawmakers, and Supreme Court justices who have shaped some of the most divisive sexual debates.