And we have to do more of that. Host john nichols is the coauthor of this book, People Get Ready the fight against a jobless economy and a citizenless democracy. Thank you for being on booktv. Guest pleasure. Host and booktv continues our live coverage of the tucson festival of book withs on the campus of the university of arizona. Were inside at the gallagher theater, but outside theres approximately 150,000 people every weekend, or every weekend that this is held attend this festival, and lots of different venues outside as well. Well, our live coverage continues here in the gallagher theater. Up next, an author panel on civil rights and the Supreme Court. After that a callin opportunity for you with New York Times columnist maureen dowd. Welcome to the ninth annual tucson festival of the books. Hi names lorraine. We want to thank Cox Communications for sponsoring this. Mr. Cohen and and the presentation will last one hour including questions and answers. We ask that you hold your questions until the end. Immediately following this session the authors will be autographing books in the sales and signing area, and the u of a bookstore tent out on the mall, thats booth 141, and books are also available for purchase at this location. We do invite you to join the festival and become a friend of the festival by texting friend, you can text now but not later, okay . 520214 book or 5202142665. You can also visit the festival booth, and thats number 110, and thats out on the mall. Out of respect for the authors and the audience, we ask that you, please, turn off your cell phones during the presentation. To get started though, i will welcome our guests today. Adam cohen is a graduate of harvard, a former member of the New York Times Editorial Board and Senior Writer for time magazine. Last year he published imbeciles. Jim obergefell was the lead plaintiff in the case that went before the Supreme Court demanding Marriage Equality. Jim [applause] jim and debbie coauthored a book titled love wins. My thanks to both of them for being here. Lets begin by showing adam some love, because i think jim got the love in this room. [laughter] [applause] adam, if you would, tell us a little bit about yours. Sure. So in 1927 the Supreme Court was asked to decide a simple question, should virginia be allowed to sterilize carrie buck, a 20yearold inmate of the state colony for epileptics and feebleminded who had falsely been declared feebleminded. The court ruled that no part of the constitution, not equal protection, not due process, not the right to bodily integrity, protected carrie buck from being sterilized against her will. She was sterilized as was her 16yearold sister, doris. It also strongly endorsed a call to sterilize more, quote, unfit people. Justice holmes wrote that the nation had to sterilize those who, quote, sapped the strength of the state to protect our being swamped with incompetence. Holmes declared it is better for all the world if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. Then holmes went on to include one of the brutal aphorisms, holmes, the harvardeducated scion said of carrie buck, her mother and her young daughter, three generations of imbeciles are enough. So this decision was the Highwater Mark in an era of eugenics. In the 1910s and 20s, we dont really hear much about it today, but eugenics was widely accepted, taught in our largest universities. Harvard was actually a center of it, the harvard genetics department, writing textbooks that the rest of the country followed teaching about the importance of eugenic sterilization. In the end of this era, 70,000 americans were sterilized. And whats worse is this became a model for nazi germany. They expressly looked to the american laws to write their own you 9 11ic sterilization eugenic sterilization laws. And there 375,000 or so people were sterilized to support the nazi ideology. In fact, when the nazis were put on trial at nuremberg, and this is a scene that happened in real life and is also reflected in the classic movie judgment at nuremberg, when one of the nazis was put on trial for eugenic sterilization, his lawyer said again, said in real life how can you put us on trial for eugenic sterilization . Your own u. S. Supreme court, Justice Oliver wendell holmes, said this was fine. So this is a terrible era in American History, i think far too little remembered. When i was in law school in constitutional law, it was not taught. Many of our great institutions were involved in it. The New York Historical im sorry, the New York Museum of Natural History hosted a big eugenics congress. Its sort of everywhere, was everywhere. Now no one talks about it. So, you know, one thing i wanted to do was just to tell people about this era, and i think it has a lot of resonance for today which i think we may talk about later. But the other thing is its also a portrait of the Supreme Court. You know, i grew up, as i think many people did, thinking when things went wrong in our country, if our rights were in danger, at least we had the u. S. Supreme court to protect our rights. And, in fact, history does not bear that out. That was i true in this case where 81 they said that carrie buck should besterrized, but dred scott, when they had a chance to let an enslaved man sue for his freedom can, they said slaves cant come to federal court. In plessy v. Ferguson, they had an opportunity to stop jim crow, they endorsed jim crow. Korematsu, they endorsed it. Citizens united was actually a case where congress did the right thing, they did something that 70 of americans wanted, put limits on campaign finance, and the Supreme Court said, no, that violates the right of corporations. And jims going to tell us about a wonderful thing the court did and, you know, completely must give them credit for that. But we need to remember that before they did that at an earlier era in the Gay Rights Movement when they really could have made an importance difference in bow wers v. Hardwick, the case was of a man who was arrested in his home for engaging in sodomy, and the Supreme Court said thats fine for georgia to make that a criminal offense. As i say, i think my book has sort of two stories in it; one is the story of this terrible eugenic era that we dont talk about enough and that, you know, could in certain ways be coming back, and the other is this, you know, conception of what the Supreme Court is really about x. Particularly now when theres a lot of, you know, unexpected things going on in politics from the other two branches, i think a lot of people may feel, well, at least we have Supreme Court. Id like to say we shouldnt rely on them too much. Adam, thank you. [applause] jim, please. So adam talked about how his book really is two stories, and my book, with debbie, love wins, is really more than my story and the story of my late husband, john, and me. When debbie and i decided to write this book together, we made a decision right from the start that it had to be about more than just me as the named plaintiff, more than me and john, my late husband. So our book is about many of the other plaintiffs in this case. There were more than 30 will haves. So youll learn about pam and nicole, parents in cincinnati with two sons. Youll learn about joe and rob, a couple in manhattan who adopted their son cooper in ohio. And cooper was the youngest named plaintiff or the youngest plaintiff in this case at 2 years old. You also get to learn about two sitting federal judges who talked to us during our work on the book and actually gave us a bit more insight into the process and their thoughts. And its pretty unusual to get two sitting judges to do that. Especially federal judges. And youll also learn about some of the attorneys, particularly my attorney, al gerhartstein, this incredible man from ohio. Born and raised on a chicken farm outside of cleveland. Went to law school on a scholarship, and during law school, one of his professors said, al, i think you should go back to ohio and practice civil rights, and thats what al did. Hes been doing it for almost four decades now. And his story really is a story of redemption. And youll learn that in the book, because the first time he got involved in a fight for gay rights was for his brother who worked for a catholic school. He was a teacher well, actually, his brothers boyfriend, his partner, and his partner was fired, and al tried to help. And he failed. He also was part of a fight in cincinnati which youll learn about in the book. Cincinnati had this horrible Charter Amendment that said no laws could be passed in the city of since gnat9ty to protect the lgbtq community. Al fought that and lost. So here is al, this incredibly brilliant, kind man whos our attorney, and our win in the Supreme Court really was a redemptioning for him. So you get to learn many stories in the book love wins. And my story really started in the summer of 1992. Johns and my story. I had recently come out that summer, i was 26, and i had the Great Fortune of meeting john not once, not twice, but the third time. And we fell in love. And we built a life together in cincinnati. And that was the time of that Charter Amendment that said no laws could be passed to protect the lgbtq community. Esquire magazine nicknamed cincinnati the town without pity. But we built our life there. And in 2011 our world changed. John was diagnosed with als or lou gehrigs disease. And if you know anything about it, you know it is a death sentence. Within 25 years, most patients die. And john, being the person that he was, he always saw life as a glass half full, he never once complained, never said why me, never was bitter, and he always worried about me. That was just who john was. And over our 20, almost 21 years together, we had talked about marriage quite a few times, but we decided for us marriage was more than just a symbolic statement. We only wanted to get married if it actually carried legal weight. We wanted our government to say, john and jim, you exist as a couple. So we never got married. And in june of 2013, by this point john was in athome hospice care, and i was his fulltime caregiver. Hospice would come five hours a week to visit, to check on him, but i was his caregiver for the rest of the time. And as you can imagine, thats incredibly tiring, its scary, its overwhelming. But for me, thats what you do for the person you love. And it was a privilege to care for him. And on june 26, 2013, i was standing next to his bed, and we were watching the news, and the Supreme Court on that date struck down the defense of marriage act with the windsor decision. Finish and spontaneously i just leaned over, hugged him and kissed him and said, lets get married. Luckily, he said yes. [laughter] because here was our first chance as a couple to actually get married and have at least the federal government say, you know what, you guys . You do exist. We acknowledge you. But here was john, bedridden, almost no ability. He could move his right hand, he could turn his head, he could speak a sentence or two at a time, and that was it. And we had to figure out how do we get this dying man to another state to get married. Because ohio, like so many other states, passed their own version of the defense of marriage act. So thanks to the generosity and support of our family and friends, we chartered a medical jet, and we flew to maryland. We threw to baltimore and landed at bwi airport. And inside that medical jet, johns aunt paulette married us, and we got to say those words that we had wanted to say for years, i do. We wanted to and we were finally able to make those promises and commitments public and legal. And that was all we wanted, simply to live out johns remaining days as husband and husband. Things cant work out quite that way. We got haired that thursday married that thursday, and on saturday our local newspaper did a story about us that came out online. Friends at a party ran into al, the civil rights attorney, and our story came up in conversation. Al asked if they thought we might be willing to meet with him, so they called. We had no idea really what he wanted, but we said, okay, come on over. So on tuesday, five days after we got married, al came to our home, and he pulled out a blank ohio death certificate, and he said, now guys, i bet you havent thought about this because why would you be thinking about a death certificate when youve just gotten married. But you understand that when john dies, his last official record as a person will be wrong. Ohio will say hes unmarried and, jim, your name wont be there as his surviving spouse. Well, al was right. We hadnt thought about it. We knew ohio wouldnt with recognize our marriage, but that was an abstract concept. And here was this piece of paper, this reallife example, this hurtful, hateful thing. And when he asked do you want to do something about it, we discussed it and said, okay. We will. That was tuesday. We filed suit this Federal District court on friday. On monday, 11 days after we got married, i was in federal court, and at 5 00 that day we won. John died three months later, but he died knowing that his death certificate would be accurate. Now eventually, the state appealed and we were consolidated with five other cases from ohio, kentucky, tennessee and michigan. We ended up with the sixth Circuit Court of appeals where we lost, and that eventually gave us the opportunity to say, Supreme Court, we want you to hear our case. And at that point it was the First Appeals Court to rule against Marriage Equality, so it created the split. And that was the silver line anything that loss. That took me to the Supreme Court, and i think you know how that turned out. [laughter] [applause] that was a pretty productive honeymoon, i would say. Yes, it was. [laughter] well try our best to go back and forth between the two. As we were preparing for this discussion, this is a real stark contrast with the Supreme Court. One is happy, one is sad. Depends how you look at it. We had that conversation before, and i hope that we can have a rich and vibrant discussion about the history of the court. I do want to start off though with adam, because as i read your book and i prepared for this, i found myself wondering do we still practice eugenics . And the reason i came to that was because i thought about abortions, and thats a way of perhaps controlling an environment. And i wondered if that is a fair question for you. I mean, there are a lot of ways to answer that question. I dont think of abortion that way, but one thing i was shocked to learn as i looked into the book was how recent many of the cases of actual eugenic sterilizations have been. There was a case in tennessee in 2015 where a prosecutor was fired because as part of plea negotiations, he was requiring the female defendants to agree to be sterilized. There have been scandals in some of the prisons in this century about eugenic sterilization, and i was also shocked to learn that not only is this case still good law, the Supreme Court had an opportunity to overturn it but did not, but as recently as the beginning of this century in 2001, i believe it was also the sixth circuit, cited it in a decision as good law. So this is, you know, this is very still real stuff. So i think in that way, eugenics is still with us. I dont think of abortion that way because i think of that as a parents choice. I think of eugenics as these cases where someone is force my or in the case of these plea negotiations coercively saying, you know, youre not the sort of person who we want more of. We dont want your children because they will bring down our gene pool and bring down the nation. We want to get you to not have children, to not be able to have children. And as i say, im just shocked that even in the 21st century this is still going on. And then if you go on the internet as i was forced to do a lot working on this book, its amazing how much that sentiment is still there, how much its there in comments and how much its there in certain ideologies that are rising right now, a belief that we really still need to do more for our National Gene pool. Okay. Jim, if we could, you really pushed for this, and as you said, you were sitting at home with john watching this court case, and you thought now is the time. Dud you think about did you think about how this could potentially change history in the United States as we know it . No. You know, when we decided to file suit, i very much was living in the moment, and im certain john was as well. And for me to think much beyond, okay, lets talk to this attorney, okay, now weve had this discussion, lets file this suit, i my High School Government class, i know piped up in the back of my mind saying, well, youre feel filing in central court, the end result could be the Supreme Court. I know that voice said that, but for me i could not think about the future because the future at that point meant johns death. And i wasnt willing to think about that. So really i would say it started to hit me after we filed and after the first win and as the attention started to grow and to kind of boomerang around the country. Thats when it started to hit me, but i still wouldnt think about it too much because i needed to focus on the day, on the day, on the moment and my limited time left with john. Be so over time, you know, once john died and as i started this unexpected life of speaking and being an activist and going around the country and, you know, it happens constantly where people recognize me. Not something i ever wanted. Never in my life did i want to be someone people recognize, but people stop me everywhere i go, on the street, in airports, in airplanes. And they stop me for the very best possible reason, they stop me to tell me a story about themselves or someone they love. They shake my hand, they thank me. They hug me, they cry. And young people tell me hearing your story, hearing you speak gave me the courage to now come out. I know how much, how big this is, and its become obvious to me it still doesnt seem possible. But every one of those interactions, you know, thats this wonderful thank you. Its a wonderful gift for me to be reminded just how important this was. But i certainly didnt go into it thinking that. I went into it thinking i love john, and we finally could marry, and how dare you, state of ohio, say we dont exist. Thank you. Id like to open it up to questions. We have two microphones on either side of the aisle here. If you would just walk up to the microphones and identify yourself and who your question is directed to. Okay, well start here. Hi. I guess this would be more for jim. Theres been talk about possibly putting term limits on Supreme Court justices, they say 18 years and youd have a justice replaced every two years. Whats your feeling about term limits for the Supreme Court . Ill be honest, i havent thought about term limits when it comes to the supreme supremet very much. I guess id have to do some research on, and read the opinions either way. You know, part of me thinks, well, you know, would that necessarily be a bad thing because, you know, its generational, you know . Our society has changed so drastically, you know, i think about my lifetime as a gay man, and its changed so drastically in those 24 years since i came out. And i know, you know, if theres someone from a prior generation who has been, you know, thats their way of thinking hasnt evolved or hasnt changed with society, for them to be on the Supreme Court, that could be damaging for my rights. But i dont know. I really have to, i really have to read more about it to see what the arguments are for and against. You know, i really just think even without term limits, the court changes. And every year the judges who are coming up into federal positions, the people who would be considered for a Supreme Court seat, theyre younger every year, and they are seeing how our Society Changes. So could we get someone whos pretty, you know, against equality . Absolutely. But i think that possibility is lessening year after year after year. So i look at it that way at the moment. And like i say, ive not thought about this before. [inaudible] sure. I think its an interesting question. One other factor is that when the founders created the Supreme Court, people lived a lot shorter lives, right . We didnt anticipate people being on the court from, you know, until the age of 90, and particularly now its become a political strategy to appoint be young people. Mr. Gorsuch, i think, is in his 40s. Were now talking about justices who might serve for 50 years, you know, 40 years. Thats a very long time. So i think its worth thinking about, but i dont really have a decisive opinion myself either. Question here on the left. Yes. This is for adam. The decision regarding involuntary sterilization was 81. Could you talk about the 1 who was the dissenting opinion, what the legal grounds for that were and whether that provides an opening for overturning that decision in the future. Great question. And im glad you asked because, you know, this is actually, the eugenics era is an era in which i think progressives, a group i include myself in, really need to be mod best because, by and large, progressives were on the wrong side of this. They were for eugenics, and that one who voted against was the one catholic on the court, quite conservative, a guy named Justice Butler. And he was actually being consistent with the i with the view of many catholics at the time. When over half the states adopted eugenic sterilization laws, when they did that, unbelievably, the league of women voters in new jersey went to argue for the law. The aclu was not opposed to it. Who showed up regularly . Nuns and priests and catholic lay people because they believed that we should judge people by their soul, by their spirit, not by these things whether they were blind or deaf or so forth. Soal though Justice Butler did not write a dissent, he just voted against, scholars think he was representing that view that a few years later the pope issued an encyclical against eugenic sterilization. But as i say, for those of us who are progressive, we need to think about why did we all get this so wrong, and why was really the one group that was most opposed, conservative catholics, and i think we have to hand it to them. And there were states like louisiana that did not pass eugenic sterilization laws because the Catholic Church showed up in force in the legislature. Adam, if you would explain that pyramid that you describe in your book of the labels of which people fell under. Sure. You know, one of the interesting things i learned about was i quoted the Supreme Court saying three generations of imbeciles are enough. And thats where i got my title from, and it was supposed to have a double meaning, who really are the imbeciles here [laughter] but that word, imbeciles, is actually a scientific term, and there was an hierarchy that was in Government Panel innocents at the time. Idiots at the bottom, imbeciles in the middle and morons at the top, all three of them being feebleminded. One thing about this, i can say so many things that were terrible about this decision and that Oliver Wendell holmes did that were terrible, but one additional thing was that poor carrie buck, who was perfectly normal and at the end of her life was doing crossword puzzles and reading the newspaper every day in her retirement home in the early 1980s in virginia, there was nothing wrong with her, but poor carrie buck was designated a moron which is the highest of the three categories. So in addition to Everything Else the court did to her, it degraded her to the imbecile level which no one ever said she was an imbecile. She was a moron, at least had been judged to be, and should get full credit for that, but they were three very real categories. And what was the criteria . If you had the iq of a 2yearold or less, you were an idiot, then there was a different age for imbeciles and a different cutoff for moron ares. But these were decisions that were made based on terrible, terrible, primitive iq tests. So i actually saw the iq test that carrie buck was given at the Virginia Colony for epileptics and feebleminded, and i have to say, i didnt know the right answers. The questions were what do you do when a playmate hits you, and based on what you say, the examiners going to decide whether youre an idiot or moron or feebleminded. I dont know what the right answer is. So that was agebased, but it was also based on these, you know, terrible, terrible iq tests. Im sorry, do you have a question . We are from the state of washington where our daughter is legally married to her wife. Yea [laughter] and even better, her wife recently gave birth to a baby. Congratulations. Kindness of a friend who donated his sperm and wrote off his parental rights, relinquished his parental rights as did his wife. However, our daughter had to adopt this baby. If it was a heterosexual couple, for some reason the sperm wasnt viable on the husbands part and there was a sperm donor, the husband would not have to adopt that child. Why does that happen in the samesex relationship . [laughter] im not an attorney, there are do can i play one on television. [laughter] i wish i had an answer for you other than i know adoptions and children are still a continuing fight across the country. You know, in the decision, part of the decision was that samesex couples who marry, they get all of the rights and everything that dose with that marriage dose with that marriage, but there are states who continue to fight that. Mississippi, i think it was mississippi be, i might have that wrong, but theres been a state in the south that is continuing to fight so to say, no, we will not put both parents names on the birth certificate. So without knowing the state law behind it or knowing any really, i mean, any of the legal stuff, i cant answer that, unfortunately. Its a shame. [inaudible] Marriage Equality [inaudible] right. I, again, without knowing the rules, the laws in washington, even then i probably, i wouldnt be able to make much sense of it because it makes no sense. I would say though that, to me, looks like a very strong equal protection claim that someone can say, look, were all married, were all spouses, but this group of spouses gets this privilege and we dont, and eventually i think that will be struck down, its just a matter of time, because that makes no sense from an equal protection perspective. Question here. Yes. For adam. Could you, with the eugenics, could you explain the role race had to do with it . She was white, and its actually it makes sense because the genesis was by large racists. Their concern was uplifting know why to raise and thought progress would occur when the white race achieved all of this potential this required to things, first of all building this wall between races because they did not want the white race polluted, so thats why we have the one drop rule the same day and then they went to get rid of people like carrie buck, the poor white trash raised by a single white mother. These are the people they did not weep people they did not want reproducing in the white race. Questions . Thank you. I brought my 10year old son with me who is too embarrassed to stand up. Especially for children and teenagers who may be interested in both history and leadership, im wondering if just generally there are any models you see on the Supreme Court or federal Court Justices who really seem to have the most thoughtful approach for understanding the history of the courts, decisions that were made, social context made and how they applied their own context and just its interesting to think about some of those justices and their writings and maybe biographies that would be useful. Sure. As much as i say that largely they have been a force for bad there has been some heroes. Louis brandeis used to be one of my heroes and they called him the peoples lawyer before he joined the court, but that he joined the majority and i havent crossed, but the two people that are heroic, one Thurgood Marshall who was a amazing on the court and also had this amazing history of the civil rights attorney before he got to the court. Heroic figure. Biographies of him. Franklin kirk clerk for him and said he was wonderful and on the court right now i like a number of the justices, but sonja soda mayor i have been to the Housing Project she grew up in the bronx and single mother and at a time when the idea of this puerto rican woman going up in the Housing Projects with a single mother making it to the us Supreme Court was such a long shot and she has done it with such grace and great personal character, but she has met a said many great things and sit up for many important causes, so i would look to both of those people. Lets me add judge martha daughtry. Six Circuit Court amid pete court of appeals and judge daughtry was the dissent. She was on our side and she wrote a blistering defense and she was one of the first female law students of vanderbilt university, one of the very first female federal judges. Shes unable credible person and also she has been through a lot as a woman in the legal profession, so i think she is also worth learning about and reading about. Reading her dissent, its a blistering. The best word i can come up with because she really took those other two judges to task for what she thought was on offensive and morally and legally wrong decision. Adam, the justices revered so well in American History until it seems this book came out. In your book you talk about how this very wealthy white family and anyone who was different than him was not to his level and therefore should be written off. When i was in law school at harvard there were portraits of him everywhere and we were led to believe he was a wonderful man and now i have a different view. I was fascinated to learn the reason he was so wrong in buck versus bell in that he came from a number of old families including the olivers, windows, homes and his mother was a lowell and on and on. His father was the dean of Harvard Medical School and a journalist in his day and his father actually coined the term Boston Common in a book he wrote. If you think about this term it really means these folks felt they were like in india a special cast in dowd that they were better than other people and other cast were lower and that was the natural order picked this is the way homes was raised. So, when carrie buck comes into his court and she is from this poor family in charlottesville, single mother growing up on the street and virginia says we dont want more carrie bucks there, they are inferior, unfit. That makes perfect sense to homes from the way he was raised in his worldview and, yes, i think these are really terrible views and i think more has to be done to associate him with them and i have been invited in a couple weeks to talk to the supreme judicial park court, the massachusetts Supreme Court where he was a justice and i intend to say the same things they are. Good luck. Jim, i read somewhere that im so sorry. Goahead. Just to follow up on the racial thing, adam, do you think that the ideas or the series behind them had sort of more these days into the prison pipeline and the laws put in place regarding sentencing . Great question here priming i think that you know in academia there is this word of the reading and i think all this is about other rain. Its about taking the group we are in and saying we are in some ways better and the other groups are worse and its also a threat. I think therefore, its not necessarily eugenics, but you see this same mentality in many things we do. Deseeded immigration, the mass incarceration and i will mention immigration again because one of the things i also learned when i worked on my book was about the immigration act of 1984 with amazing parallels to today. Didnt realize that immigration act of 1924 was done largely for eugenic reasons. One of the villains of my book who was the head of the Eugenics Record Office in the major proponent of sterilization was designated an expert eugenic agent for congress and he testified before congress about which nations were more of a threat to our gene pool that others and based on that immigration act of 1924 was passed to keep out battalions, Eastern European jews and other groups that were seen as inferior and to have more northern europeans come to the country. You take it even further and you realize what happened after 1924 , the rise of the nazis, many people trying to flee the holocaust who tried to come to america were blocked by this law and one of the real revelations i had one day is the New York Times some years ago published some letters that auto frank wrote to the Us State Department make begging for visas to bring his family to the country and he was denied. Of course they did not get them because of this act, so when we think about and frank thine in a constitution camp, she died there because the nazis believe the jews were genetically inferior, but to some extent she died because the u. S. Congress believe that. See that question here in the last. This is mostly for adam. There have been several particularly horrendous child of these cases here in and elsewhere recently and i have heard, that there have been some essentially get yourself sterilized. My question to you is do you feel that the right to bear children is absolute or should some children some people agreed to sterilization when they are horrendous parents . That is a good question and one that i did not need to address headon in my book. [laughter] you do think, obviously these categories were created for the idiot in the psalm moron, but could there be a human being who was so mentally deficient that you did worry that if they had a child it would be that terrible things happen to the child and there is something i think about not 20 to have a child brought into the world that dies and has a horrible life, but its so hard to unpack those issues. I would say this will be by far the biggest copout of the day, but i think you have flagged a great issue that we should all be worried about. I would say it doesnt necessarily follow new to the traditional category of eugenics where we say your jeans are a threat to our gene pool and you should not be reproducing, but is there some way to which its actually better for the child in the world and i think we should all devote some thoughts to that. In your book you talk about how its choice versus the government and the court telling you are regulating your ability to reproduce. I have become a bit of a proponent on something i call the good eugenics, which is a couple years ago the chinese researchers for the first time were able to edit the human embryo and that means that we are on the way to what the press has called designer babies, so theres a lot of reasons to be concerned about this and one thing about this human genome editing it actually gets reproduce throughout all the children not follow that this will change the human race. Why could this be good . Because they are focused on removing the gene that causes terrible diseases, so huntingtons disease for example. If you can just remove it from the embryo may be if you have the gene yourself maybe you can have a child who doesnt die at an early age or go mad at a young age, so when there have been conferences about this its often people who have these genetic diseases who say please allow editing of the human genome because i would like to have children that dont bear what i bear. Thats not eugenics or the state saying you are a bad person and you cant reproduce. This empowers the unfit, the week to say here is a tool you can use to have the kind of children you think would have a better life. A big report that came out last month where the scientific establishment endorsed this tentatively, there will be a lot of pushback with discussion. I think done correctly it could be a good thing. On the right, please. When i learned about the Supreme Court growing up it was always this one nonpolitical branch and it was the nonparty line and clearly that is not the case today. Im curious if its always been like that work if it is just something or are we just now aware that clearly there is a big political influence on who is appointed or is that become more and more so over time . I would say much more so. If you look at our society in general its become so much more polarized. Its hard to believe now, but there was a time when more republicans in congress favored abortion rights and democrats trick it was actually catholic democrats that largely opposed it. There was a real middleground of people and now the parties are so polarized and we see that with appointments of the court. Cold war and who was responsible for some of those good decisions was a republican appointee and president eisenhower said it was the biggest man pool decision ever made. Look at the thought into choosing people like neil court should wear there are people poring over every bit of his record and he doesnt meet a litmus test for Republican Party they would oppose the republican president appointed him, so its a sad thing because theyre used it to be more of a swing in congress where there would be people in the middle trying to do the right thing, not what their party dictated they do. Now, we just know it will be Justice Kennedy who is the moderate republican that will be this way and everyone else is predictable. Gym, in your book you talk about how you are refreshed to see that someone you thought would not support you did. Personally in the in your experience how for example your attorney maybe she was civil rights, but you were pleasantly surprised some of your interactions with people showed you i will share it interaction i had that fits this perfectly. As the case was going on if i had written a list of the types of people that i would have thought these people will never support Marriage Equality and never think this is a good thing , i have a story about who we been number one on the list. April, 2015, when i was in the courtroom for oral arguments i was sitting in the public seats with and paulette, johns aunt and people suited seated around us did not know who i was in the next amount somehow in the gentleman sitting next to me turned it to me and said i have to tell you you and johns story had a dramatic impact on someone. I have a 20 brother who is a Roman Catholic priest and he knew i was coming here this morning and he called me and said i have to tell you i watched the story about him in his late husband and it has touched me deeply and they may rethink this issue. s little bit later he was telling the same story to an paulette that he said john and jims story really affected to people and i thought you told me about your 20 brother who is the other person, so rob sitting on my left turns to me shakes my head, thanks me and said i may evangelical republican. For me that was one of those moments when it struck me just how much of a difference stories can make and our case i thought from the start everyone loved to someone. Everyone loses someone they love and i thought john in my story and the stories of the other plaintiffs, parents with kids, those stories or something pretty much everyone can relate to and i thought it made a difference. Here was someone from that number one list of people i would have never expected to support me thinking me and shaking my hand, so that for me will always be the number one example of how the real people at the heart of a case in the story of those people can change someones mind. Leslie. John and, do you happen to know the history or rationale to the magic number nine of the Supreme Court justices and it appears that there are so many major decisions that are made by one swing vote. Also, what are your thoughts about increasing the number . Nine people are representing a lot of americans. What are your thoughts about increasing the number of people that sit on the high court . I believe if i remember my law school days it did not start at night and became nine and then during the new deal famously fdr came up with a Court Packing plan to threaten if they did start upholding his new deal which they were striking down regularly at a time when the country was reeling under the Great Depression and fdr had these new deal programs in the conservative court strike it down and he threatened it to pack the court and the court actually switched and a started upholding his legislation, so we never got that. There have been calls to increase the size of the court. Im not sure i have a strong view on it. I dont feel that the problem is the number. I feel the problem is the people that are on it. Jim. I agree with that work i dont know if it would be any difference it with their or nine, 11, 13, 21. You will have this political size process nominating and if i recall there is nothing written that says have a justices have to be on the Supreme Court. Nine has become a tradition and im not sure when it started, but i also remember there werent always nine. On the right, please. I think its a to say that eugenics as described in the book isnt junk science, so i was wondering these days went it seems to be like a lot of especially the animus for lgb tq Community Based on what has been debunked science. How do we hold elected officials or Supreme Court justices since they are so far removed from society to standards of what is actually the best scientific practice of the time. Thats a loaded question. Really a question for society in general. Climate change where we are getting people in high offices who need to do this stuff that dont believe in what scientists are sane and we see it also in fake news where we cant even agree on what the facts already more. I wish i had simple answers, but for those of us who care about the direction of our country things like lgb tq writes, Climate Change and making sure we are not all washed away by the melting icebergs, it is our job to do the best we can to speak up for the truth and respect science and get the public to respect science. I dont know an easy answer, but i think that is one of our big struggles for 2017 and beyond the. I think a big part of what we could do and what should happen is getting more people involved in local politics. I think about science and the way our culture right now seems to be embracing lives in fake news and going against science and fact. One way we can fight that is to elect people to local School Boards who believe in science and who believe in facts so thats where it starts and if we dont start taking back local governments, state governments with people who are committed to truth and facts it wont change. I just want to followup on my fellow Washington State neighbors question. I think in Washington State the recommendation that they adopted their children wasnt so much for the parental rights within Washington State, but in response to what if other states you travel to another state you take your child outside, they get and asked that, they go in a hospital or maybe that state will not recognize your parental rights, i know youre not a constitutional lawyer, but if you say it affords all the rights of parenting in that Supreme Court case level love wins, then how can stay to do that teasing out and make those distinctions statebystate that sort of a road or what zero what that means . I mean, that throws in the mix another part of the constitution called privileges and immunities which are supposed to be in court across the states, but i think its ultimately equal protection issue that once we as a country, a Supreme Court recognize that same sex marriages are the same kind of right of other marriages that Everything Else has to follow and this has been the course in general that once we recognize that women have equal rights then pensions cant discriminate against women and once we recognize that africanamericans have equal rights and has to transfer translate to all parts of society so i think we have made great progress in establishing the idea of same sex marriage, but the next step is a whittling away these things that remain as still treat them spouses unequally and i think that is all that really this, you know, child adoption stuff is about is saying we do not regard your marriage as equal to another marriage and it doesnt matter if its federal or state, eventually that will all have to fall because its unequal. Do you have anything to add with regard to maybe coopers story or background you learn from the case . Nothing that i can think off the top of my head, honestly. I know all of those parents involved in the case would go through the second parent adoptions for that very reason thinking at least we can do this and how that additional layer of legal protection, but it does come down to the simple fact that no one should be forced to do that when the Supreme Court has said your lawful same sex marriage brings with it everything that goes with it as an opposite sex marriage. Its a matter of time before legislators across the country to retire, to die, to be replaced by people who live in this current century. Your on the left, please. I have heard a lot about what judges should consider whether its science or history or from a plaintiffs perspective and sort of a host storing or poor commentator perspective what do you want a judge to be considering . I think about the helped her case where the justices sort of what a new history and did a bad job of that. You have the bookcase where they did a bad job of popular science. What can judges consider well . Thats a great question and one that we will hear more about as the core chits herein comes up because its one of the big things people think about and judicial confirmation. There is one view that says original is him that says the only thing that matters with the founders would have done if they were hearing 2017 which i dont put much thought on that, but as you say it becomes much more interesting when you talk about should they look at the latest issue of scientific american. One thing i take Justice Holmes to task for its there was a very prominent series in the new republic before buck versus bell was decided written by a friend of his, Department Journalists walter with men who and homes in these people and he knew about this series. Totally debunked iq tests. I feel that yes, he should have taken some notice of that and there is some provision. We dont like judges to do that too much to take judicial notice of facts that are out there, but if you notice the ideas you apply like iq testing should sterilize someone is wrong and i think you have to take into account. Should they read the paper every day like yours a new study and what i rule on today even though its not in the briefs and did not come up in oral argument . That seems too far. Yes, judging is incredibly complex, but i think black and white ideas like a regionalism, its just what the founders wrote are wrong and yet we dont want them to literally, oh, i saw a tweet on my way to my changer chambers that changes everything, but how do you get that right balance of being informed and thats what judging is about. As you said, times have changed. Times have changed and to adams point about a regionalism, if we of scribe to theory or belief, well, then we still would have slaves. Women would not have the right to vote. Wives would be the property of their husbands, so to me thats a copout to thats a way to say we that is the type of world we want. We want to go back to where we straight, white, men were the ones in power, had the power and controlled everything appeared to me that is what original is an is all about and i dont think thats a valid way for a country in the 21st century to govern itself or to or a valid approach towards law, so they have to Pay Attention to whats going on in our culture, in the country and they do Pay Attention. I fully believe Justice Kennedy has become a hero for the Gay Rights Movement because he has a clerk who is gay and he knows this person. They have a relationship. They are friends. They he knows what he is gone through and he is allowed that relationship to impact his understanding and his belief of what it means to beat lg bt q, so Society Changes and they are a first of making big sweeping changes at least it seems like it from my perspective until they feel like the country is there with them. Thats the way it should be. The constitution is a living breathing document because our country is a living breathing changing country. We have just about a minute left. Jim, you spoke so well and if you dont mind wrapping it up and giving us one final thought for our audience members. I guess i would get back to my original point which is that i think we are brought up to believe the Supreme Court is our savior and because those nine men and women are wearing these black robes and they have the constitution their hands that in tough times they will come to our defense. I would say if you look back at that eugenics era, to jim crow, before the Supreme Court im sorry before the civil war to if you look at all of these times when we really needed them they had not been there, so what is that mean . We need a Supreme Court and they do good things, but it goes back to a gym was saying that we need to get involved with politics at the local level, National Level because ultimately those are the forces that will save us. Is going to be elections and people expressing their well. We cant look to these older men and women with their law books to come in and make our country right. Thank you to both of you for your insight. Thank you to the audience. If you would please the author were authors will be outside signing. Thank you very much. [inaudible conversations] host book tv live coverage on tucson festival of books continues on the campus of the university of arizona, which has been the home of the festival for the past nine years book tv has been live for the last several years as well and coming up there are several more panels including in half an hour or so freedom of the press with authors maureen dowd, joe carson and evan thomas. Thats whats coming up and if you want to follow along you can go to book tv. Org and get the full schedule or you can follow us on twitter at the tv or facebook, facebook. Com. book tv. Lots going on outside, but we are inside and for the next halfhour we are pleased to have New York Times calm this, maureen dowd here before her panel. We will take your calls as well. Maureen dowd, how do you view your job . Guest well, peter, thats a big question. I dont like to talk about this because it sounds a little corny. I view my job as a watchdog and times readers often dont understand that im not an ideological columnists, not coming from the left or right. I was a political reporter for 20 years and so i come more from a political reporting point of view. On just going to try to tell them its like toto pulling the curtain in the wizard of oz. Im going to try to give our readers anything i can find out that they need to know about, you know, what is true and what is false