《英文婚姻侵权私人安排（男女同性恋双性恋变性问题）SSRN-id1340607》.pdfVIP

Widener Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series no. 09-09 Marriage, Tort, and Private Ordering: Rhetoric and Reality in LGBT Rights John G. Culhane Widener University School of Law This paper can be downloaded without charge from The Social Science Research Network /abstract=1340607 Electronic copy available at: /abstract=1340607 MARRIAGE, TORT, AND PRIVATE ORDERING: RHETORIC AND REALITY IN LGBT RIGHTS JOHN G. CULHANE* I. INTRODUCTION Phyllis Lyon and the late Del Martin lived through a dramatic arc of LGBT progress. Together for more than fifty years, they began as passion- ate activists whose lives together defied law and social norms. 1 While their own advocacy and that of countless others over a decades-long struggle resulted in decriminalization of sexual intimacy in same-sex relationships and even a measure of (often grudging) social acceptance, they long re- mained outsiders to the panoply of rights and protections the law reserved for opposite-sex couples, especially married ones. Matters improved for some with the advent of domestic partnership laws conferring some of the benefits typically associated with marriage.s but whether that final marker of social approbation will be achieved remains unclear. Featured in a moving photograph widely circulated over the Internet in 2004, Lyon and Martin were among the temporarily joyful couples granted marriage licenses in San Francisco. As is well-known, the Califor- nia Supreme Court rul