Chasing Queers: The Radicalism of Conservative Legal Attacks on Lesbians and Gay Men

William B. Turner, Emory University School of Law

Abstract

This paper describes seven cases, mostly from state courts, that are unremarkable except that they reveal a pattern of attack by conservative activists, including law firms, on the rights of lesbians and gay men. In attacking the rights of lesbians and gay men, these conservatives also frequently assert special rights for themselves. Five of these cases involve standing or intervention, with conservatives asserting patently insupportable (except in one case) claims to standing for the purpose of depriving lesbians and gay men of benefits. Two involve full faith and credit. With one exception, these are all state cases that would otherwise never attract much attention. By considering them all together, however, we see a pattern according to which conservatives are willing to jettison long-standing, well established principles of American law in order to chase queers in the legal system.