Captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 and so when the administration did decide not to defend doma, tony west called robbie. The way he told her was, you know, what, sometimes prayers work, you know, so theres lots of i think, you know, really compelling and interesting detail about that case that you havent read in the newspaper, you know, that said to your legal point, yes, because prop 8 was decided on a technicality essentially, it doesnt have value so you cant point to it and cite it as okay this is the reason. The windsor case was the merit. It took all the arguments that robbie had made. It also talked about the importance of marriage and why marriage is important, which was very much an argument that was made in the prop 8 case. A and, and so when and i think its almost its every ban now has been under challenge either at the state or federal level. So of course they cite to windsor but also have cited the perry, the prop 8. Im pretty sure its every case they cited to the prop 8 trial record in making judgments, for instance, about what sexuality is a choice or about, you know, the harm thats done to gays and lesbians and their children by telling people that you cant get married. And so i think both those cases have been hugely beneficial and well ultimately have to see what the Supreme Court decides to do in the end. You had touched on briefly about the fact the entire lgbt movement wasnt necessarily behind the fact they were bringing it to the Supreme Court. For instance, the former bishop was against the fact that it was going to the Supreme Court, he thought it was too early. Because even in the case of the first Civil Rights Movement, they didnt pursue it at a Supreme Court until a majority of the country was for it. So did you think it was too early . What were your thoughts on the people thinking its too early . I think you have to play the what if game. I thought it was a great story. I wanted to follow it and write a book about it but, you know, with the benefit of hindsight, what if ted olson had gotten his way . Ted olson didnt want a trial. He also didnt want a bunch of things that happened to slow the case down when it was in its kind of middle phase, the appellate phase. So what if it had gotten up to the Supreme Court as fast as he wanted it to get. The concern here was not that everybody didnt share the goal, the concern was that five justices of the United States Supreme Court would vote. People wondered what had happened. Bowers was a case that preceded lawrence v texas. The bowers case was it was georgias sodomy statute. The consensus was it was brought too fast. The Supreme Court doesnt like to reverse itself. How much longer could this wait. What ifs on the other side. What the people bringing this thought was, you know, that this wasnt just about marriage. That it was about when a state says that certain kinds of relationships are worthy of something, that others are not. That that has consequences that go far beyond the ability not to kind of walk down the aisle and call yourself married. It is, you know, in chad griffins view, it drives things like bullying in schools. It drives things like the fact that gay and lesbian teenagers have a far higher, you know, suicide rate. It drives things like the higher rate of gay and lesbian homelessness. So from their point of view, their point of view is, like what if another, you know, generation or five grades of kids grow up and are still being told this. You know, chris perry testified at the trial and she said, you know, if bans like proposition 8 did not exist when she was growing up in bakersfield, california, that her entire life would have been lived on a higher arc. You know, and so from their point of view, time there was no more time to wait. And what if what if mitt romney had been elected instead of barack obama . That was a distinction possibility. Came somewhat close to happening and, you know, one of the older liberal justices were to die and be reeb placed by mitt romney, would there be even the possibility of five votes at that point. And how much longer would you have to wait then. You know, thats the neat thing about history. You cant brpredict it. Its hard to know how things would have played out if it didnt play out the way it did. I have a broader question sort of in which case was the watershed but really legalized gay marriage around the country and was it a case. And i know i mean, its kind of the question you always well, is it, you know, browne, you know, or was it the Civil Rights Movement that changed things in this country. And so im asking you that question. I know you focused on that because, for one thing, you know, you would have to write three books at least to write about the gay Rights Movement but im just im almost hearing your answer, both are important and, you know, but i want to put you on the spot a little bit and really want you to choose, you know, was it, you know was it, you know, just some people deciding or was it a movement . Look, it is a movement. It is its so many important events. It is what happened that stone wall. Police used to go into bars and raid gay bars. You werent allowed to congregate in bars. So it was the stonewall riots when the police raided a bar in new york city. It was the aids activists who mobilized and, you know, Health Crisis and people like cleave jones who is one of the main characters of my book and the creator of the aids quilt. It is, you know, it was all of the work that people like evan wilson did on the ground. On the political ground. And it was also i know you dont like that answer, also litigation. At a certain point, this is what was in dispute, at a certain point, you basically say, look, if this is a civil right, you cant put civil rights up to a vote. You dont get to put these peoples basic civil rights up to a vote. You couldnt hold a referendum in New Hampshire and say i dont want black people to attend the same schools. Not possible. And so i think that the debate over when was it the time to go federal and take it to the courts. It wasnt that that was ever not part of the movements plan. It just was a question of when. And the terrible crimes and happened to gay people just because theyre gay. Yeah, i mean, over the course of this reporting period, there was a moment where one of the lawyers one of the young gay attorneys on the team said there had been thrash of terrible teen suicides. And you i dont know if you remember all these but, you know, a boy had hung himself in the after being taunted at school. A College Student at rutgers whose roommate taped him in an intimate having an intimate act threw himself off the George Washington i think it was the George Washington bridge. It was sort of this movement where the lawyer enrique said, you know, i think were making so much progress, i think were doing so much good, and then Something Like this happens. Yeah, that kind of thing i think shock, the conscience. Hi, i have a comment and a question. And the comment is, i wanted to add to what you just said because i think in terms of this movement that its also been brave people coming out. When i was younger, no one would have watched ellen and now everybody watches ellen. I think as more people have been out all over the spectrum, whether its a sports person, it just becomes part of our life and i think thats a huge issue thats shifted just in my lifetime. That the question i have though where do you think this movement is going. Where do you think the bumps are going to be. Because i see that having been from california and being out here, it bewilders me that so much moved so fast in the northeast. And not as much in the west. And i wander where you see us going in the next few years. I want to go back to your point. That is the number one reason. We talk about a movement. We talked about different historic moments in that movement and different people. But the bottom line is the reason that we are where we are today is because people have come out and theyve told their stories. And 9 out of 10 people now know someone who is gay or lesbian. And thats and that is the number one predictor of whether you think that people should be that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to mar marry. Theres no question that people who have come out, people who have been braved enough to face the discrimination and, again, tell their stories, all of the credit goes to them. Where is the movement going . I think were going back to the Supreme Court pretty quickly. The Supreme Court can duck if it wants. But i dont think it can. Right now, the two the it was cases theres three cases that are on a fast track, the United States Supreme Court, to ask, you know, so they dont do this on a technicality. One is in virginia. One is in utah. One in oklahoma. Those are the fastest moving. If the Appeals Court judge upholds the lower courts ruling and the utahs ban is unconstitutional, i cant imagine the Supreme Court would deny and not review that decision. I think theres a huge challenge ahead. For those of you who dont know, in more than half the states, you can still legally discriminate against gays and lesbians because theres no federal law. Theres no equivalent of sort of the civil rights act. You can see, i dont i want to fire you because youre gay. Or i dont want you to stay in my hotel because youre gay. And you can get away with that in the states that dont have specific protections which are more than half. So thats a bill in congress right now. Its called enda. Theres a big fight over it. Theres a fight about the opponents of this are saying, well, you have to have all this religious liberties exceptions and you have bakers who wont bake cakes if its for a gay wedding. You think about that and just substitute the word, i dont want to bake a cake because youre africanamerican, you couldnt do that, but you can and i think thats going to be a big fight. As ive talked to people, too, i mean, part of it is i think part of it is a challenge right now theres been so Much Movement so quickly that its easy to forget that still theres 40 of the country that give or take depending on the poll that remaineds to be convinced. How do you sustain the kind of coverage, the kind of contention and try to move those 40 . I want to thank you all for being such a great audience. I want to remind you there are books for sale in the lobby and jo will be out to sign them in a little bit. Most of all, i want to thank jo for a wonderful presentation. [ applause ] if you liked the book, please post a review on amazon