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Are LGBT Rights Civil Rights? Tracing the Contested Origins of the ACLU's LGBT Project

Mon, August 18, 8:30 to 10:10am, TBA

Abstract

Despite its long-standing commitment to civil rights, the ACLU did not create an LGBT Rights Project until 1986. This paper reveals a long history of dissent within the ACLU over the relationship between LGBT rights and civil rights. This dissent played out within the national organization and between the national organization and the state level affiliates. While the ACLU took cases on behalf of lesbians and gays as early as 1936, before 1966 official organization policy was that discrimination based on sexual orientation did not raise questions of civil rights. Beneath this policy, ongoing debate drove gradual change that eventually enabled the organization to establish new policies. Today, the ACLU’s steadfast commitment to working in the institutional sphere of state police power continues to shape its legal strategies in contrast to other LGBT legal organizations. This paper introduces a multi-institutional theory of legal mobilization to explain how the ACLU’s focus on state police power uniquely shapes both organizational development and legal strategy. Using historical institutionalism, the paper illustrates how this multi-institutional model plays out over the course of gradual changes in the ACLU’s organizational identity and goals.

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