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What are the effects of judicial action and policy implementation on attitude change? The previous literature indicates that attitudes may change, but there is some debate about its direction. According to some theories, legislation or litigation should strike a backlash, resulting in greater disapproval of the issue. Other perspectives contend that these acts reflect consensus, legitimate, or polarize the issue. We analyze panel data on attitudes toward same-sex marriage and feelings toward lesbians and gay men. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court made historic decisions on same-sex marriage, and residents in some states had same-sex marriage legalized. Given this variation, we decompose the multiple pathways attitudes change among residents in different policy contexts over time. We find that residents of states that had same-sex marriage policy introduced had the greatest reduction of anti-gay attitudes. We consider consensus and legitimacy as most applicable and provide minimal indication of backlash or polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we begin to respond to the deceptively simple question: How do cause lawyers decide when and where to litigate on behalf of their cause? We consider the choice of location and timing faced by cause lawyers when more than one jurisdiction evinces a suitable legal environment for pursuing litigation on their cause. To consider this choice, we use evidence from the timing and actions of cause lawyers in the marriage equality cases in the United States from January 1990 through December 2004. And, we show the value in utilizing methods that are relatively novel in cause lawyering research-statistical models-to consider the apparent commonalities, beyond a suitable legal environment, across locations and time periods that might prompt cause lawyers into action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arising in the late 1960s and early 1970s-in conjunction with the development of sociology of law and the Law and Society Association-gap studies dominated much of sociolegal scholarship for a time, providing multiple examples of the ways in which law on the books is inconsistent with law in action. These gaps, in turn, spurred calls for legal reform. By the 1980s, however, gap studies came in for criticism, not only for the presumption that law was purposively rational but also for scholars' beliefs that they could identify law's aims. To some, the findings were naïve or undertheorized. Nonetheless, gap studies have illuminated many legal practices and have helped to identify pathways by which law may have an impact. Even as sociolegal scholarship has become increasingly decentered from law, one still sees the tendrils of gap studies in research exploring discrepancies between expectations and actuality in law and legality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those interested in studying the relationship between law and social movements have a wide variety of theoretical and empirical research to draw on, from both social movement theory and legal studies. Yet these disparate studies of law and social movements rarely engage with each other. In this chapter, we review current developments in research on law and social movements and summarize the chapters in this special issue. These chapters offer insight into the multivalent nature of law for social movements, the factors shaping movements' strategic engagements with the legal system, the relationship between law and identity for social movement activists, and the complex role that cause lawyers play in social movement processes and dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines whether judges can be identified as activists on same-sex marriage using evidence from federal and state legislative and judicial action on same-sex marriage in the U.S. It states that courts have acted on same-sex marriage since 1971 but there has been a difference on judicial activism and action. It adds that before the ideas about judicial activism expressed by former U.S. President George W. Bush in 2006, issues on same-sex marriage are arising.

This article reviews the results of a discipline-wide survey concerning lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and the transgendered in the discipline. We find that both research and teaching on LGBT topics have made some headway into the discipline, and that political scientists largely accept that LGBT issues can be fundamentally political and are worth studying and teaching for that reason. Nonetheless, troubling questions about discrimination both against those who conduct research concerning LBGT issues and LGBT individuals themselves remain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional and most common conception of cause lawyers has viewed them as necessarily oppositional to the state, leftist, and, at best, transgressive. This conception is significant to our analysis because of its tendency to treat "the state" as a rather singular arena of power--an "it"--rather than a multi-dimensional entity made up of competing institutions and personnel. Following work on the disaggregated and embedded state, we suggest that conflict and competition among state institutions and state personnel allow cause lawyers and state actors to engage in mutually-beneficial action in service of their agendas. Litigation has important benefits for both cause lawyers and state actors: within the arena of law, processes that usually require the backing of large constituencies in the context of majoritarian institutions require, instead, convincing legal arguments. We briefly present evidence from two highly disparate cases of similar processes of interaction among cause lawyers and state actors in Vermont and Israel, which we believe indicates that this type of interaction is far from idiosyncratic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1990 through 2004, same sex marriage emerged as a major policy issue. In responding to this controversial policy issue, many state legislatures demonstrated unusual behavior. A substantial minority of state legislatures continued to introduce new legislative bills on this topic long after the legal position of the respective state would indicate that the state had articulated a recognized and settled policy. In this article, we propose that the apparently aberrant behavior of these state legislatures can be explained in part by consideration of legislative signaling directed toward state courts. Specifically, we consider the attempt of state legislators to discourage intervention by the state courts around some policy issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a regression model of pooled time series data from the 50 states in the United States in the period 1990 to 2001, we look at the political, demographic, and social movement factors that provide the impetus for the enactment of state laws that proscribe the celebration of marriages involving lesbian and gay couples. In doing so, we consider the validity of existing indicators that have been previously associated with the introduction of policies concerning sexual orientation at the state and local level, as well as introduce new factors that might apply uniquely to the area of same-sex marriage laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyclohexanone monooxygenase was produced from Acinetobacter calcoaceticus grown on a medium containing both glutamate (30 g l-1) and cyclohexanol (1 g l-1). Productivity was increased to 650 U l-1, an order of magnitude greater than previous production methods, thereby enhancing the potential commercial utility of this enzyme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews Hugin Runtime, a computer program for creating and analysing probabilistic inference structures known as belief networks, influence diagrams or Bayes networks.

Reviews the computer software @RISK which allows spreadsheets to handle risk and uncertainty by incorporating probability distributions.

Reviews the computer software C & C (or Cooperation and Conflict), a program for authoring prisoner dilemma games, from PDS Software Co.

Reviews the decision analysis software Supertree from SDG Decision Systems.

Examines the differences between the approach used by public policy students and the approach employed by political scientists in policymaking. In-depth look at the public law approach to courts as policymakers; Information on the public policy approach to courts as policymakers; Details on the differences; Reason for the differences.

On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Obergefell v. Hodges, that the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution forbids legal discrimination against same-sex marriage. The decision sent shock waves throughout the country, with both supporters and opponents regarding it as signal of dramatic shifts in public opinion and a revolutionary development on the road to sex-gender equality. Just two days earlier, on June 24, 2015, Stephen Macedo’s Just Married: Same-Sex Couples, Monogamy, and the Future of Marriage was published. Macedo has always worked at the intersection of legal theory, normative theory, and public policy, and Just Married offers a nuanced liberal democratic defense of marriage equality with striking resonance in light of Obergefell. We have thus invited a range of scholars on LGBT rights, and LGBT politics more generally, to comment on his book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic theorists assume that government policy responds to public opinion. But public opinion may be influenced by other political actors through the mass media instead. Scholars agree that the news media have become more attentive to and supportive of lesbian and gay rights over time, and they identify several factors as explanations for the change. While events, the gay rights movement, official statements, and government action may have had an effect, coverage was contingent on the decisions of news institutions and media owners to devote attention to them. There have been few studies on the media's impact, but decisions to cover the gay rights movement appear to have moved public opinion. Despite setbacks, continued debate over gay rights is likely to generate favorable media attention and lead to increased public support for lesbian and gay rights over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I argue that litigants identify the appellate courts as offering a powerful and public arena where litigants' claims are placed (at least temporarily) on an equal footing with the current state of the law. In this context, the initiation of appeals is treated as synonymous with receiving endorsements from the appellate courts that the litigants' original claims had sufficient merit to deserve better treatment than they had received previously from either the opposing parties or the trial courts. These actions work to raise appellants' social status, and I propose that such activity is one additional reason why some litigants might appeal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]