What happens politically once courts enter the fray surrounding hot-button social issues such as same-sex marriage? Before 2003, the answer with regard to that topic was: Only political disaster befalls interest groups and other supporters who prevail in court – a modified version of the Hollow Hope argument (Rosenberg 1991) at the state level.

Witness the Aloha State after the 1993 Hawaii Supreme Court's Baehr ruling. Political backlash crushed the nascent same-sex marriage moment there, with only very modest reciprocal benefits ultimately accruing to gay and lesbian couples. More important, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, and more than three dozen state DOMAs ensued.

Then came the Vermont Supreme Court's 1999 Baker decision and the Vermont Legislature's endorsement of civil unions the next year. Later in 2000, Republicans resoundingly took control of the Vermont House of Representatives, where sixteen incumbents who supported civil unions lost reelection (Moats 2004: 260).

This chapter tells the story's third installment.

Massachusetts before Goodridge

The struggle for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts has roots that go back at least to 1989, when the Commonwealth became the second state in the nation (after Wisconsin in 1982) to include sexual orientation in statewide laws banning discrimination in employment and public accommodations.