Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians V. the Supreme Court

"Courting Justice" is an authoritative account of gay men and lesbians who have petitioned the court for their civil rights. Through interviews with clerks, excerpts from transcripts and audiotapes of oral arguments, justices' notes of meetings and rough drafts of decisions, and the journalist authors' clear explanations of legal jargon and procedure, we watch the court at work. The mysterious, incontrovertable third arm of our government is revealed to be simply nine men and women, as subject to prejudice as the rest of us. But we also see a few justices wrestle with their prejudices and write forceful dissents and eventually a majority opinion (Romer v. Evans) that wrapped queer Americans in the constitutional guarantee of Equal Protection. Because Murdoch and Price's book covers such a broad timespan, they're able to dissect the court's (often achingly) slow evolution from viewing gays as perverted criminals to citizens. If you want to understand the key legal questions facing gay, lesbian, transgender, and bi-affectional Americans, and their search for equal justice in a country that promises so much, I would highly recommend this book. But don't read it before bedtime; Scalia's a pretty scary boogyman.

Courting Justice immediately strikes one as a gay version of the Brethren, Bob Woodward's classic book probing the inner workings of the U.S. Supreme Court. In some respect it is. Murdoch and Price, who also have ties to the Washington Post, have gained access to private papers and interviewed a network of usually close-mouthed law clerks to attempt to piece together the Court's hidden deliberations in gay rights cases over the past three decades. Given the Court's staunch commitment to preserving a thick shroud of secrecy around those deliberations - for reasons not unlike those of the Wizard of Oz - this investigative journalism has always been extraordinarily difficult. Nevertheless, through obvious persevering determination, Murdock and Price have managed in Courting Justice to cast some fascinatingly revealing light on the Court's decisionmaking in each gay rights case it has considered (or refused to consider). The book is valuable for these insights alone.But Murdock and Price and have done far more than Woodward, perhaps because their focus was more precise. They offer a compelling thesis about the Court's evolving disposition toward lesbians and gay men, one that, in some respects, mirrors the disposition of mainstream American society toward the same community. The book shows the Court as what it undoubtedly really is: a collection of individual men and women who come to work in the morning with predefined notions and biases about lesbians and gay men. The book credibly describes an evolving Court that, through persistent confrontation and education, has grown in its understanding of the gay community and objectivity toward gay people.Beyond that, the book ends up simultaneously offering a grand historical narrative of the modern gay rights movement. Just about every gay rights controversy has ended up knocking on the doors of the Supreme Court at one time or another, and telling the stories of those cases and the people involved in them necessarily educates readers about the history of the gay rights movement - and in langauge that is always wonderfully written and at times deeply moving. This book demonstrates exactly why journalists are often so much better at writing accessible and fulfilling social-legal history than legal academics are.

I received this book and once I got it, I sat down and read it all at one sitting. The authors have done an incredible job of researching and writing about the Supreme Court and its influence on Gay and Lesbian Americans. The double standards and the isolation of the Justices from the outside world is amazing to someone like me who lives in Australia and where judges are accountable for their decisions.The fight for GLBT Americans to gain their rights has a long way to go but after reading this book, there may be some hope for the future. I found it very ironic that Michael Bowers could go to court regarding the infamous Hardwick decision whilst he was committing adultery at the same time. You gotta love the hyprocisy! I was very pleased to see that the Georgian powers that be have overturned that state's laws, yet it still impacts on everyday GLBT Americans.Thanks Deb and Joyce for a great book, I look forward to your next one.

I was so gripped by this book that I stayed up through the night reading it in one sitting! A rare event for me... Murdoch and Price have gone into the belly of the beast, interviewed more than 100 former Supreme Court clerks, gone through the available papers of deceased justices with a fine-tooth comb, and come up with a compelling account of how the nation's highest court deals with lesbian and gay issues (or, perhaps more accurately, refuses to deal with them). I can't imagine anyone with an interest in gaylaw not finding this book a compulsive page-turner and a source of numerous new insights. The heros emerging from its pages -- William Brennan, William O. Douglas, Franklin Kameny, etc. -- leave indelible impressions. A must-read!

This book is a must read for anyone interested in the role of the supreme court in the modern lesbian and gay civil rights movement. Meticulously researched, it contains invaluable details about key cases and the roles that various justices have played in the formulation of rationales that either support or undermine gay rights. The authors write in an engaging style that will appeal to nonacademics as well as academics. I literally could not put the book down!