The riveting story of the fight for same-sex marriage in the United States--the most important civil rights breakthrough of the new millennium.
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR . The riveting story of the conflict over same-sex marriage in the United States-the most significant civil rights breakthrough of the new millennium
""Full of intimate details, battling personalities, heated court cases, public persuasion.""-John Williams, The New York Times
On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state bans on gay marriage were unconstitutional, making same-sex unions legal across the United States. But the road to that momentous decision was much longer than many know. In this definitive account, Sasha Issenberg vividly guides us through same-sex marriage's unexpected path from the unimaginable to the inevitable.
It is a story that begins in Hawaii in 1990, when a rivalry among local activists triggered a sequence of events that forced the state to justify excluding gay couples from marriage. In the White House, one president signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which elevated the matter to a national issue, and his successor tried to write it into the Constitution. Over twenty-five years, the debate played out across the country, from the first legal same-sex weddings in Massachusetts to the epic face-off over California's Proposition 8 and, finally, to the landmark Supreme Court decisions of United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges. From churches to hedge funds, no corner of American life went untouched.
This richly detailed narrative follows the coast-to-coast conflict through courtrooms and war rooms, bedrooms and boardrooms, to shed light on every aspect of a political and legal controversy that divided Americans like no other. Following a cast of characters that includes those who sought their own right to wed, those who fought to protect the traditional definition of marriage, and those who changed their minds about it, The Engagement is certain to become a seminal book on the modern culture wars.
By:
Sasha Issenberg
Imprint: PENGUIN GROUP USA
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 47mm
Weight: 1.453kg
ISBN: 9781524748739
ISBN 10: 1524748730
Pages: 928
Publication Date: 17 August 2021
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: A President Decides 3 PART ONE: THE LOVE THAT ATE AN ISLAND (1990–1996) 1. Seeking License 21 2. Only One Man Marching 32 3. A Distinct Civil-Liberties Question 45 4. Rolling the Dice 55 5. Gay Mafia 60 6. Making the Case 63 7. Baehr v. Lewin 69 8. A Chickenskin Moment 78 9. Shoals of Time 84 PART TWO: INVENTING A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS (1996) 10. Wardle’s Run 93 11. Dominos at the Barn Door 99 12. A Message from the Presidency 104 13. Apostles 108 14. Hawaii’s Future Today 115 15. Kickoff 124 16. Don & Bob 131 17. The Law Man 141 18. How a Grievance Becomes a Bill 151 PART THREE: INSIDE GAMES (1996) 19. March On, Washington 161 20. Fights of the Roundtable 168 21. Waiting for a Nightmare 176 22. The Rebrander and the Firebrand 182 23. Smooth Sailing 192 24. Endangered Liaisons 199 25. Two Weeks in May 204 26. Dear Friends 212 27. An Election-Year Baseball Bat 217 28. When the Deal Goes Down 221 29. Midnight Cowboy 231 30. Trial at Honolulu 238 PART FOUR: THE SECOND FRONT (1997–2003) 31. Shameless Agitator 247 32. Queer Town Meetings 255 33. Marriage 101 263 34. Anything But the Slam-Dunk Cases 268 35. Baker v. State 273 36. The Remedy 281 37. Scenes from a Civil Union 286 38. Down from the Mountains 295 39. The Next Town Over 301 40. Goodridge 306 PART FIVE: “OUR TEAM IS NOT WINNING” (2003–2004) 41. We’re the Marriage People 315 42. A Sense of Where the Culture Is Headed 324 43. Enemy of the Good 332 44. Marriage Movements 340 45. Wise as Serpents 346 46. Dueling Amendments 356 47. Lawlessness 366 48. Issue One 377 PART SIX: TWENTY TEN TEN TEN (2003–2007) 49. When You’re Living Through It 387 50. Paul Revere Rides In 390 51. Speaking for the Silent Majority 401 52. Clear It with Evan 409 53. Organization Man 417 54. Mining the Foundations 422 55. Outgiving 427 56. Clarity of Coalition 432 57. After the Bloodbath 443 58. Punish the Wicked 451 59. Let California Ring 462 PART SEVEN: THE RIGHT’S LAST STAND (2007–2008) 60. It Came from San Diego 469 61. Little Kingdoms 473 62. God’s Way of Bringing People Together 478 63. Nassau Street 483 64. To the Ballot 490 65. Amen Brothers 495 66. The Mormon Empire Strikes Back 499 67. Proposition 8 507 PART EIGHT: THE ROAD FROM JERSEY CITY (2009–2012) 68. Whodunit 515 69. Meet in the Middle 521 70. Gathering Storm 527 71. Up Against the Wall 532 72. Roadmap 539 73. For Better or for Worse 546 74. Money Talks in New York 555 75. A Grave Price 566 76. Campaign in a Box 573 77. Land Rush to the Ballot 583 78. Conversation and Inoculation 590 79. Four Ballots 599 PART NINE: ENDGAME (2009–2015) 80. Dooming DOMA 617 81. Dave & Ted’s Excellent Adventure 623 82. Duty to Defend 635 83. Facts of the Matter 643 84. Appealing Stuff 653 85. Inaction Hero 661 86. Leading from Behind 672 87. In the Shadow of Lady Liberty 683 88. Shotgun Wedding 699 89. And Then There Were Nine 706 90. Blinding Times 712 91. When the Dam Breaks 719 92. Once and for All 729 Coda: Back to Hawaii 737 Postscript: Massive Desistance 754 Acknowledgments 763 A Note on Sources 767 Notes 769 Index 871
SASHA ISSENBERG is the author of three previ-ous books, including The Victory Lab- The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns. He has covered presidential elections as a national political reporter in the Washington bureau of The Boston Globe, a columnist for Slate, and a contributor to Bloomberg Politics and Businessweek. He is the Wash-ington correspondent at Monocle, and his work has also appeared in New York, The New York Times Magazine, and George, where he served as a contributing editor. He teaches in the political science department at UCLA.
Reviews for The Engagement: America's Quarter-Century Struggle Over Same-Sex Marriage
Issenberg's nuanced and insightful reporting brings clarity to this important milestone. --Booklist A definitive portrait of a key victory in the battle for LGBTQ rights. --Publishers Weekly The Engagement is a sprawlingly rich history of the United States' most transformative equality movement. Issenberg's impressively wide-ranging interviews allow him to go beyond the familiar story of trailblazing lawyers to give lesser-known campaign consultants due credit for their critical contributions to bringing about a sea-change in America's acceptance of gay equality. Likewise, Issenberg's fair-minded treatment of equality opponents further demonstrates The Engagement will be an enduringly significant work of history. --David J. Garrow, author of Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade and Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama In this deeply engaging and comprehensively reported work, Sasha Issenberg traces the story of marriage equality from its beginnings as a nearly impossible dream to its current status as an essential right. This engrossing account of social change, political will and human rights arrives at a moment of great urgency. Issenberg's narrative will inform the efforts of anyone who strives for a more equal country, and touch the heart of anyone who has seen their rights come up for debate. --Pete Buttigieg, author of Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future Sasha Issenberg has produced a sweeping, inside history of the first great civil rights triumph of the new century, masterfully weaving together the stories of the pioneering activists and the political and legal strategies they devised into a book of penetrating reportage and analysis that reads like a thriller. --Joshua Green, author of Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising At once political history, movement autopsy, legal chronicle, and fly-on-the-wall account, Sasha Issenberg's latest is a one of his most thought-provoking books to date. By reckoning with the stories of those who hoped finally to legalize same-sex marriage, as well as those who were determined to delay, or actively to prevent, such a revolution, Issenberg animates one of this nation's most recent and dramatic civil rights fights as few others have. And, in doing so, he makes clear not only that its origins were most complex, but also why its legacy remains most uncertain. --Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy
