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Social & Legal Studies
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Framing Same-sex Marriage in Canada and the United States: Goodridge, Halpern and The National Boundaries of Political Discourse

Miriam Smith

Trent University, Canada

The article draws on post-positivist policy analysis and social movement theory to explore the impact of law in shaping the politics of social movement claims and discursive construction of same-sex marriage as public policy issue in Canadian and American politics. Using the concept of framing, the article discusses the ways in which lesbian and gay rights claimants in Canada and the USA have framed the issue of same-sex marriage in two landmark North American rulings on same-sex marriage, Halpern (Ontario) and Goodridge (Massachusetts). The article finds that, despite differences in legal policy legacies between Canada and the USA, there is a common rights frame governing lesbian and gay struggles over same-sex marriage. Although working with different legal frameworks, judicial precedents, statutory law and human rights protections, courts reached remarkably similar conclusions about same-sex marriage and largely endorsed nearly all of the elements in the rights frame put forth by lesbian and gay litigants. Despite similarities in the framing of lesbian and gay rights issues in the two countries, the article demonstrates that the central difference in the same-sex marriage debate in Canada and the USA concerns the place of the rights frame within the broader political culture.

Key Words: Canada and the USA • framing • judicial decisions • same-sex marriage • social movements

Social & Legal Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, 5-26 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0964663907073444
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