ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the legal developments and the ways in which gay people benefited from the civil rights movement and its nationalization of rights. The overriding political goal was to end the tyranny of the "closet" by assuring gay people space in which to "come out." Equal gay citizenship required assurances that homosexuality would not be the basis for losing one's job. The battle lines shifted in the 1980s from public colleges to high schools, where the Supreme Court insisted upon deference to school administrators, and private colleges, where the first amendment was inapplicable. Between 1961 and 1969 the Warren Court nationalized the rights of criminal defendants by "incorporating" of the Bill of Rights into the due process clause, which rendered them directly applicable to the states. Long before Griswold, the Supreme Court held that statutes providing insufficient notice for citizens and police to know precisely what conduct is criminal are too "vague" to satisfy the demands of due process.
