ARTICLE

Abstract

In a 1999 assessment, New York Times journalists Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney stated that “it seems likely that the movement for gay identity and gay rights has come further and faster, in terms of change, than any other that has gone before it in this nation.” The evidence supports their claim. The Encyclopedia of Associations, for instance, shows that the number of organizations devoted to gay causes has skyrocketed in recent decades. In 1970, there were no gay or lesbian associations listed; in 1980, there were 14; in 1990, there were 234; and in 2000, there were 327. A “gay tipping point” occurred in the United States in the latter decades of the twentieth century.

* Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law, NYU School of Law.