Liberal Jurisprudence and the Literal Grammar of Marriage Equalit(y)(ies)

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This article employs linguistic anthropological methods to examine the debate over whether equal protection doctrine requires legal recognition of same-sex couples’ marriages. It focuses on oral arguments at the Supreme Court of California in the seminal In re Marriage Cases (2008). I argue that the contested use of equal protection terminology simultaneously displays the cultural neutrality of liberal jurisprudence and harbors cultural ideologies about sexual orientation. During oral argument, this duality compressed into grammatical competition over a single shorthand term, equalit(y)(ies). Selecting the singular versus plural form reproduced counterbalanced arguments in favor of uniform equality through marriage or comparable equalities through domestic partnership status. But the ideologies hidden within the grammatical nuance also provided flexibility to overcome that inertia at particular moments.