Balkinization  

Tuesday, December 08, 2020

What Obergefell v. Hodges Should Have Said (Yale University Press, 2020)

JB

Yale University Press has just published my new book, What Obergefell v. Hodges Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Same-Sex Marriage Decision (Yale University Press, 2020)

In this book, I've assembled an all-star cast of legal scholars to rewrite the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry. The Justices on this hypothetical Supreme Court include Doug NeJaime, Reva B. Siegel, Andrew Koppelman, Catherine Smith, William N. Eskridge, Jr., Katherine Franke, Melissa Murray, Sherif Girgis, Robert P. George, Helen M. Alvaré, John C. Harrison and Jeremy Waldron. (I play the role of the Chief Justice.)

I also provide a critical introduction that chronicles the gay rights litigation that led to Obergefell and explains how courts respond to political movements for new rights claims.

This is the third in a series of books rewriting landmark Supreme Court opinions. The earlier books in the series are What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said (2001) and What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said (2005).


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Advance Praise for What Obergefell v. Hodges Should Have Said

“Jack Balkin has gathered a terrific group of constitutional scholars to debate a fundamental issue: same-sex marriage. This is a great introduction to the confounding question of how Americans should interpret their Constitution in today's world.”—Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Sex and the Constitution 

"By including a wide spectrum of voices and social movement perspectives, this book provides an extraordinary case study of how constitutional law and politics can produce starkly different social meanings of such fundamental concepts as marriage and equality."—Nan D. Hunter, Georgetown University 

“This engaging and thought provoking book features a wide range of scholarly views about marriage, constitutional liberty and equality, and the roads not taken in Obergefell.”— Mary L. Bonauto, attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) 

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