Gay Rights and American Law

It investigates how American appellate courts dealt with the struggle for lesbian-and-gay civil rights during the 1980s and 90s. It explains how diverse factors influenced the adjudication of civil-rights claims during a vital era of the homosexual-rights movement and formulates methodologies for the meaningful quantitative empirical study of law.

Daniel Pinello''s exhaustive study analyzes how federal and state appellate courts treated the civil rights claims of lesbians and gay men between 1981 and 2000. Pinello examines 1,439 votes by 849 appellate judges in 398 decisions and opinions from 87 courts in all federal jurisdictions and 47 states. His investigation reveals that legal variables; judges'' personal attributes; environmental factors (juridical ideology, consensual sodomy statutes, and gay civil rights laws); institutional determinants (judicial selection method and term length); and time and interest group participation were significant forces in judicial policymaking.

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