Gay Rights and American 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.