Transcripts For ALJAZAM Talk To Al Jazeera 20140510 : compar

Samesex marriage. The two friends were also add versaries on another landmark u. S. Supreme court case, bush versus gore. The leader of the free world was at stake. The highpowered litigator reflects on a personal struggle. What it demonstrates is that dislyslexia is not a disability its a difference. I talked to david boies recently in new york. David boies, welcome. Why did you get involved in the issue of gay marriage . I think its a defining civil rights issue of our time. This is the one area, has been the one area in this country in which not only did we discriminate against people and there is a lot of discrimination that goes on, on a social basis, but this is an area where our government discriminates against its own citizens and has a last essential official bastion of discrimination, governmental discrimination. I think both ted olson and i thought it was particularly important that we try to bring an end of that. They called you the odd couple. Yes. How did this come being . Well, although ted and i are quite opposed in a lot of respects in terms of our yeah. Politics and we were obviously against each other in bush v. Gore, we are good friends. We both always have, i think, respected each other. We looked for a case to work on together. And this was just the perfect case because not only was it an opportunity to work on something that was imports but it was an opportunity top Work Together to try to bring this country farther along on the path to equality. You had some reservations. Right . Well, i had some reservations about the case because of the opposition to the case by people in the gay and Lesbian Community who had worked on these issues for a long time. They said it was too soon . They said too far, too soon, we endangered the gains that they had made and because they had devoted so much and knew so much about this area, that was counsel that would obviously give me concern. Whats it like to be in a highprofile case like this, especially gay marriage . You have probably been the two most devices cases in our countrys history, bush v. Gore and gay marriage has been the issue that has divided the country for years. If i hadnt been a lawyer, i would have been a High School American history teacher like my father was. So in one respects, its a privilege just to be at the scene and see history, history being made. But in addition, i think, one of the great things about a lawyer, about being a lawyer, is that you have a chance to fight for justice. I think on this case, on the gay marriage and the Marriage Equality issue, both of us believe that this was a critical issue for our justice system, that this was a critical step for this country to take in order to assure that everybody, regardless of race, religion, national orientation, Sexual Orientation or any other distinguishing characteristic was an equal citizens in front of the law. Why did you call the book redeeming the dream . The dream really was the dream of equality and that dream was realized in california in 2008 when the California Supreme Court held that all citizens of california were entitled to Marriage Equality, and then that dream was taken away in proposition 8, and so this was, in a sense, a redeeming of that dream. It was also redeeming the dream of equality and. Martin luther kings dream . Martin luther king so famously spoke about. You think there is a direct line between the Civil Rights Movement and the movement for gay rights . I do. I think there is a direct line. Its not necessarily a straight line, but i think its i think there is a direct line from the struggle of equality that this country has gone through over the last one 50 years. Its involved race. Its involved gender. It involves Sexual Orientation. Its involved relig. Its involved national origin. We have moved toward the dream of equality. Our founders had great principles that all people were created equal and had certain inalienable rights. It was revolution arrest, a great principle. The problem was in those days, it really didnt apply. They didnt apply it. When our constitution says, we, the people of the u. S. Means we, white, male property owners. Expanding the concept of who the we is in we, the people has been a process this country has gone through. I think that process is a direct line. Has this effort moved faster through the courts than you thought it would have . I dont think its moved faster through the courts than i thought it would. I think that it has moved in this country faster than we expected. Is Public Opinion driving the courts . I think the courts affect Public Opinion and i think sometimes Public Opinion affects the courts. I think there are two different trains that are going down the track right now the legal train and the train in the court of Public Opinion. Fortunately action i think both are going in the same direction, picking up speed. Whats the legal issue here . Whats the important legal issue here . The important legal issue is does the state have the right to discriminate against certain of i was citizens based upon Sexual Orientation where that discrimination serves no legitimate public purpose . , one of the things we set out to prove at the trial was that discriminating against people based upon Sexual Orientation in terms of who could marry harmed them and the children that they were raising. And even the defendants experts agreed with that because its clear when you deprive somebody of a right as fundamental as marriage, you fundamentally hurt them. You hurt them emotionally, reputationally, their place in the community and economically and the same kind of damage is done to the children they are raising depriving people of Marriage Equality didnt help anybody. Is it heterosexual, my marriage, the fact my gay neighbor cant get married. There wasnt any legitimate purpose, it was a product of discrimination, a product of a belief that people were different based upon Sexual Orientation. And because that didnt serve any legitimate governmental interest, there was simply no governmental basis, no justification for discriminating based upon who could get married and who couldnt get married. The loving versus virg case, how did that impact what you were doing . Sure. It was a case in which the support held in 1967 that virginias laws that banned interracial marriage were unconstitutional. And in that case, the court talks about how fundamental a right marriage is that was racial discrimination. Its interesting 13 years after brown versus board of education to get around to holding that bans and interracial marriage were just as discriminatory were bans on children going to the same schools. I think that sort of says something about the importance of sexual relations and sex and marriage and all of the related issues to us in this society. And so it was critical, we thought, in the area of Sexual Orientation just as it was critical in the area of racial equality to establish that everybody had the right to marry the person that they loved. You have watched these laws pop up in states across the country. Do you think and these are laws that essentially say on religious grounds that Business Owners dont have to serve samesex couples. Right. Dont do you think thats a direct result of whats going on in the courts relating to gay marriage . I think it reflects the same kind of discrimination in terms of Marriage Equality just as in the 60s, you had businesses saying we dont want to serve african americans. Suf always had establishments that didnt want to serve certain groups of people that people had discriminatory intent about, whether it was based upon race or religion or gender or Sexual Orientation. And i think you see that now. I think that will end as well just as it took awhile to integrate the lunch counters of the south in ternz of racial equality. It may take awhile toms of raci equality. It may take awhile to be sure all businesses are integrated in terms of Sexual Orientation. Thats something thats coming in this country. Do you think about the other side and where they come from on this issue . Sure. Absolutely. Have you thought about it . Absolutely. Where do you think it comes from . Well, i think it comes from different places. I think with respect to some people, they have a genuine and sincere religious belief that heterosexual marriage is the only marriage that god intended, and thats a religious belief that they are entitled to have and our First Amendment to the constitution guarantees them the right to have that belief and the right to practice that belief in their church. The same First Amendment of the constitution also guarantees that they do not have to impose those religious beliefs on anybody else. They can decide how they live their lives. Run their business . Not run their business because when you start running just as, for example, an individual can believe in their hearts and in their religion that whites are superior to africanamericans. They do not have a right to run their business that way because when you engage in commerce, when you open up a business, you take on certain rights and responsibilities and one of those responsibilities is not to discriminate against customers. The court didnt decide the issue of gay marriage . The United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court did not . Did not. Has not yet . Did not. This is going to come back before the court . It probably will, and youve got a sense that decision last june. You have since that decision, last june, you have had numerous federal courts around the country in ohio and oklahoma and texas and virginia and utah, all over the country, faced with a question as to whether or not cities criminal nation based upon Sexual Orientation and who can mary is constitutionry is c every one of those decides the federal constitution for byrd discrimination based upon who can married. Republican bundle, democratic judges, judges appointed by george w. Bush. Bill clinton, barack obama, george h. W. Bush who we had in our trial Court Appointed by ronald reagan, the jung that first ruled Marriage Equality was constitutionally required was appointed by ronald reagan. This is not a democratic or republican or liberal or conservative. Judges are interpreting the constitution to require Marriage Equality. When you say it like that, i wonder why that didnt happen 10 years ago . That is what my children and grandchildren are asking me why did it take so long . Why does anybody believe that people ought to be discriminated against based upon Sexual Orientation . Why does anybody believe that you ought not to be able to marry the person you love . Its only the people grown up in eras in which they didnt know people of different Sexual Orientations because the kind of discrimination that existed rivard people to hide their Sexual Orientation so type of. Those are the those are the hearts and minds that we have to win. The young people who have grown up in a different era, the battle is over with respect to them. When you look back at the two big cases, bush versus gore and this case, how do you compare them in the impact that they have on this country . Well, they each had a tremendous impact. I think the Marriage Equality case ahas certainly affected an awful lot of peoples lives in very, very important ways. Its always hard with cases. Ive got six children. Its hard for me to say which child is most important and its hard to say which case is most important. But i dont think there has ever been a case that i have been as satisfied with, as proud of as the Marriage Equality litigation. I want to ask you more about bush versus gore when we come back. Sure. Im Joe Berlinger this is the system id like to think of this show as a watch dog about the system. To make sure justice is being served. With our personal liberties taken away from us, it better be done the right way. Is justice really for all . You followed their journey across the border it was heart wrenching. Now see how it changed the lives of the people involved. I didnt go back to the person that i was before i left. An emotional borderland reunion this trip was personal to me. This is real. Long held beliefs. Illegal in mexico too. Learn the language come here. Most ridiculous thing ive heard in my life tested by hard lived truths. These migrants are being exploited beyond borderland. Only on Al Jazeera America back with david boies until the gay marriage case, was the bush versus gore case the biggest case of your life . It was one of the biggest. How did you get involved with that . I was called by Vice President gores team and asked to come down to tallahassee for a couple of days while we started this out. Yes i didnt get to sleep for the next 30 days as we went from court to court. We went to the United States Supreme Court twice. We went to the florida Supreme Court three or four times. All within a space of 30 days. Did you anticipate that it would take that much time and that many courts and would go all the way to the Supreme Court . I dont believe anybody at that time anticipated that long, go to that many courts and not the Supreme Court. I think most people thought this was a case that would be decided in florida by the florida Supreme Court under florida law. Thats the way elections had always been decided before. We had only had one time in our history where you had had participation by Supreme Court justices and that wasnt even as a court. Was as part of a panel that included 3 people from the Supreme Court, three people from the house of representatives and three people from the United States senate. So although they were justices, they werent acting in a judicial capacity. You had never had the Supreme Court as a federal judicial body deciding who became president of the United States. What was at steake in that case other than the leader of the free world. The leader of the free world was at stake and that was a pretty important decision and maybe a more important decision than we realized at the time. I think that what was at stake was the way our democracy works whether you are going to have Judicial Intervention to, to stop low count. Remember what happened here was that under florida law, people were entitled to a retail. The Supreme Court stopped that recount. It stopped the recount before they had agent. They had an argument and confirmed it. They stopped the recount before they had argument. On the case one of the things that the majority judges said was you want to stop the recount because if the recount shows that Vice President gore is the winner, then that will undermine the legitimacy of george bushs presidency. I think some people would argue decision in a long run sense also undermined the legitimacy of the electoral process. I know lawyers dont like to lose cases . No, we do not. Can you please describe to us what it is like to lose a case like that . Well there probably will be no other like that. At a Birthday Celebration not too long after wards, one of the toasts remarked that every lawyer loses questions. Do you feel that burden . You always wonder whether there was Something Else you should have done. One of the things is the books and articles that have been written that interviewed the judicial clerks and the like made clear that this was something that the court had decided even before the argument. The argument didnt make any difference . You always hope it will make a difference, that you can break through and you always wonder whether there was something that you could have said broken through that perception, gotten them to change their mind, gotten one judge to change their mind, but i havent been able to think of what that would have been that we didnt say. I have read that you and ted olson, on different sides of the bush versus gore case as being on the same side of the Marriage Equality case dont talk about this that much. We talk about it some, but there is not much to say, and we could repeat what we said in court. Nots much productivity. The Supreme Court decided who was right and thats the way we despite cases in this country. You asked me about the significance of it. I think there is some neg i have been significance but a positive, too. After the case was over, i was interviewed by a number of reporters from around the world. I was interviewed by a particular reporter from russia and our reporter said you have to help me understan