Already 2014 has been a huge year in the freedom to marry movement. Advocates have won 16 out of 16 federal and state court decisions across the country. Polls show support at an all time high of 59%. But, although it may seem that way, this didn’t happen overnight.
For over 30 years many have been in the trenches carrying the fight. People like Evan Wolfson, and Bruce Bawer and Jonathan Rauch and Andrew Sullivan provided much of the early intellectual heft of the movement. And then, when it came time for the legal battles to escalate into the federal courts, one of the most unlikely partnerships in civil-rights history, David Boies and Ted Olson - two of Americas super lawyers, who squared off against each other in Bush v Gore, teamed up to fight California’s ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8, — all the way to the Supreme Court.
A year after their victory the have chronicled it, in Redeeming the Dream: The Case for Marriage Equality
My conversation with David Boies and Ted Olson: