Precarious Claims: The Promise and Failure of Workplace Protections in the United States

Abstract

all is remarkable, and that it happened so quickly makes it all the more important to study how it happened. However, opponents of same-sex marriage appear onedimensional in Frank’s narrative, and his analysis of the opposition is filtered through both our retrospective view and his secular progressive sentiments. For example, concerning the motivations of opponents, Frank writes, ‘‘Once gay love was deemed dignified, something marriage equality would, in fact, help confer, social conservatives would lose crucial ground, and so they sought to cast gay marriage not as a matter of equal rights but as something that would undermine civilization itself’’ (p. 163). In this and other passages, analysis of opponents’ actions is not informed by the same rigorous standards of research that he applies to supporters. Thus, the book provides an outstanding account of how same-sex marriage supporters won, but readers will need to look elsewhere for an analysis of how opponents lost. Aside from this small limitation, Awakening is essential reading for any researcher focused on same-sex marriage in the United States, and its focus on legal strategy and court cases distinguishes it from other analyses of the LGBTQ movement that focus primarily on grassroots activism and institutional politics. Beyond the case of same-sex marriage, Frank’s book shows very clearly how the actions of legal and political elites can spur activism and how those elites are at the same time constrained by conditions ‘‘on the ground.’’ In this way, researchers interested in social movements, political sociology, and law are likely to find in the book a rich, detailed illustration of the complex dynamics of law, politics, and society. Precarious Claims: The Promise and Failure of Workplace Protections in the United States, by Shannon Gleeson. Oakland: University of California Press, 2016. 177 pp. $34.95 paper. ISBN: 9780520288782.