Answered Questions

You're in exactly the right place to ask this question.

I'm going to assume (you know what they say about assuming) that you want more of a historical perspective than a psychological one. If this is not exactly what you need, let us know.

As will most searches, I started with the LibGuide for PY Masters students. Whereas I would normally click to the articles tab, I instead clicked to Books, because historians publish their overarching research in books. You'll see the catalog widget at the top of the page. Search history of gay marriage. In all of these searches, don't limit the dates. When doing historical research, old is just as good as recent. The second result in the catalog is Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today's debate Over Gay Equality, by George Chauncey. Chauncey is a professor of American History at the University of Chicago, and the book is a scholarly analysis placing the campaign for marriage equality in the greater context of discrimination and human rights.

According to a colleague more knowledgeable than I, the history of gay marriage can be traced back to the demand for medical and human rights during the 1980's AIDS epidemic and even further back to the demand for privacy rights during the 1950's and 1960's, when gay bars would be raided and the customers' names published in the newspaper.

Another result is Same-Sex Marriage : The Personal and the Political. The authors are a professor of psychology at the University of Calgary and a professor of law at Queen's University. As with the other book, you'll find the references in the form of endnotes. It focuses on legal history and personal interviews.

The catalog results provide several other scholarly books that may be useful.

As far as articles, click to the Articles tab and search Social Science Journals. Try same sex marriage. Use the limiters on the left side of the page. Among the results you'll find Baunach, D. M. (2012). Changing same-sex marriage attitudes in America from 1988 through 2010. Public Opinion Quarterly, 76(2), 364-378. doi:10.1093/poq/nfs022

You can also search Academic Search Complete, just down the page from Social Science Journals. Here search "same-sex marriage" AND history and use the limiters on the left of the results to limit your results.

For a legal perspective, search our legal databases. Search The Legal Collection for Windsor v. United States, Hollingsworth v. Perry, and Obergefell v. Hodges.

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