“Gay marriage on trial: The relevance of slavery”

Eve Conant writing at Newsweek’s The Gaggle: With the two gay couples off the stand for now, attorneys for the plaintiffs in Perry v. Schwarzenegger are turning to experts and historians to dissect the meaning and progress of the institution of marriage. Yet instead of gay marriage, historian Nancy E. Cott, a former Yale and now Harvard professor, has been grilled today and yesterday more about slavery than homosexuality . . . The defense cross-examination paid less attention to slavery, and more to Cott’s ability to answer how gay marriage might affect the country . . . “