Courthouse Democracy and Minority Rights Same-Sex Marriage in the States

• Provides a clear engaging background about recent same-sex marriage cases and theories of judicial impact, making it appropriate to assign in undergraduate courses.
• Assesses the impact of state courts using cutting edge data analysis. The results are presented clearly, in ways that will be accessible to non-experts.
• Focuses on same-sex marriage, one of the most important policy areas of the present day.
• Includes numerous tables with statistics about the same-sex marriage cases, which readers will be able to incorporate into their own teaching and research.

In Courthouse Democracy and Minority Rights: Same-Sex Marriage in the States, Robert J. Hume examines how the democratization of state courts and state constitutional systems has influenced the capacity of judges to protect minority rights. Through an intensive examination of same-sex marriage policy, Hume shows that democratic innovations like judicial elections and initiative amendment procedures have conditioned the impact of judges on state marriage laws. Using a combination of original and publicly available data, Hume demonstrates that " has influenced the behavior of state judges, the reactions of the public to state court decisions, and the long-term policy consequences of these decisions, including the passage of state constitutional amendments. Hume concludes that judges will be capable of producing meaningful social change-and protecting minority rights-only when they have the institutional resources that they need to stand against popular opinion.

Readership: Scholars and students of judicial impact, public policy, state politics, and LGBT issues.