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Book Review: Why Marriage Matters
WHY MARRIAGE MATTERS: America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry
Wolfson, a renowned legal advocate of gay civil rights, presents his legal brief for equal marriage rights for gays. The book is structured like a brief, in that each chapter addresses a different aspect of marriage and dismantles arguments against gay marriage. Starting with the definition of marriage, Wolfson shows that marriage has changed in meaning over the years. Each succeeding chapter addresses a question, such as "What about the children?" The same fears concerning gay marriage, he asserts, were raised when interracial marriage was an issue in the 1960s. To his credit, the author addresses head-on religious objections to gay marriage. He invokes the constitutional separation of church and state to keep religious disputes out of the discussion.
Well written and evenhanded, this book should be read with David Moats's Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage, which provides the historical context and describes in detail the participants in the Vermont marriage battle. Recommended.
— Harry Charles, Attorney at Law, St. Louis
LIBRARY JOURNAL, July 13, 2004
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Why Marriage Matters America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry.
By Evan Wolfson
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Read families’ stories about how marriage discrimination affects everyday life. These stories communicate, in concrete ways, how the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage hurts families and helps no one.
Start in The Marriage Basics to get short answers to your big questions about the freedom to marry, and learn more about the protections and responsibilities of marriage, the historical background for this civil rights movement, why separate is not equal, and so much more.
