Bureaucratic discretion and same-sex couples

This article considers the role that bureaucratic discretion can play in expanding access to government resources and government legitimacy for same-sex couples during periods of policy ambiguity, and how efforts to shape the use of bureaucratic discretion can be used as moments of political activism by same-sex marriage advocates. Special attention is given to the heightened role of bureaucratic discretion in the context of policy ambiguity surrounding gay marriage in California, before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the historic Hollingsworth v. Perry case.