The legal situation of LGBT people has changed dramatically in the past 50 years, and Harvard Law School and its alumni have been at the forefront of that revolution. As late as the 1960s, every state in the country criminalized sex between consenting adults of the same sex, considered homosexuality a mental illness, provided no legal recognition of same-sex couples, and regularly deprived LGBT parents of custody and visitation rights. In the past two decades, the Supreme Court has issued a trilogy of constitutional decisions reversing this situation, holding that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits animus on the basis of sexual orientation; that the Constitution bars states from criminalizing sodomy among consenting adults; and that it protects the rights of same-sex couples to marry. This panel explores the development of LGBT legal protections throughout American society with a group of Harvard alumni, as they discuss their–and the law school’s–involvement in producing those changes.
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