Marriage equality is official now that it’s in The Family textbook

Well, actually, it’s in a special addendum to the textbook that W. W. Norton is just releasing.

The book I wrote, The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change, hit the streets a year ago today. Marriage equality plays a significant part in the story, much larger than the proportion of the population that is directly affected by the changing law. That’s because of the high-stakes nature of the debate for so many people, and because of its symbolic acceptance of rising family diversity — the main theme of the book.

So when the law suddenly, and fundamentally, changed this summer, we decided we needed an update for instructors teaching this fall. The three-page supplement reviews the political and legal events leading up to the June 26 Obergefell decision, and the logic of the legal questions addressed — along with a little context on the place of marriage equality in the story of family change. I hope it’s helpful for you.

The update is now available on the Norton website, here, and on my teaching page. While you’re at it, you should visit the book’s homepage, and see what we have in store for you if you teach family sociology (and request an exam copy), here.

Also:

• A symposium with 12 writers and researchers addressing the concept, “After marriage equality,” which Syed Ali and I edited for Contexts.
• My whole series of blog posts on marriage equality is archived under the homogamy tag.