Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Forcing The Spring 20140705

Eudora saved everything she ever wrote, so she have every draft at the museum of history. Which is wonderful for researchers, they can go back and say, lets see, why did she decide to change this word in but, of course, its a night mare because all these loose things are hand sewn in. But unlike today when writers, you know, they do it on a computer, and they to the next version, and the first version is gone. But we have all the edits, and these are copies of just a here sampling. I cant say what her legacy is, but to me, just her mastery of the short story form uhhuh. Particularly as it relates to, um, dealing with the internal life that people often dont talk about, but its there. She really, her powers of description are amazing. Not only the physical description of nature, but also just the interior dramas that are going on within the individual but also between close individuals. Its extraordinary. But i think the southerner is a talker by nature. But not only a talker, were used to an audience, were used to a listener. And that does something to our narrative style, i think. For more information on booktvs recent visit to jackson, mississippi, and the many other cities visited by our local content vehicles, go to cspan. Org localcontent. Next on booktv, jo becker talks about the history of the fight for Marriage Equality in the United States. This is about an hour and ten minutes. [inaudible conversations] good evening. Its not a movie, so we can start a little late. I want to start by thanking a couple people. I want to thank not people really. I want to thank the Concord Monitor for sponsoring this event. I want to thank red river theater for this terrific concord venue, for a place to hold this. And i want to thank Michael Herman from gibsons for turning out. You heavy noticed when you walked in, he has books in the lobby, and jo is going to stick around to sign some afterwards, so i hope youll take advantage of that. I also want to thank jo for coming a little bit off the main circuit that Book Publishers put you on to come to concord. Of course, she also came to see some old friends, because thats one of the things that happens when you work as a reporter in concord, you meet a lot of seem, and they stay friends for a long time. So i want to say just in introbe duction, i think probably youve introtexas, i think probably youve read a little bit about in this the hon to have, but i want to talk just a little bit about jo and my experience with her when i was editor of the monitor. That, at some point during that time, she decided that she wanted to leave the monitor. She had a nice offer from the st. Petersburg times, but i want to tell you of all the reporters i ever had, i dont think anybody ever struggled as much with that decision as jo did. Because she had such a great loyalty to concord and if the can monitor. Shed had such a wonderful time as a reporter here. We were, of course, used to reporters coming here, staying a few years and moving on to larger papers. But jo came in and talked to me about this two or three times before she finally decided to take the offer from the st. Petersburg times. And then about two or three years later after shed won all kinds of awards for investigative reporting at the st. Petersburg times, she called me again and said she had an offer from the Washington Post and what did i think . [laughter] should she take that . Or should she stay at the st. Petersburg times. She felt terribly loyal to the times. They had treated her right. She had gotten to do many great stories, and should, should she take this job at the post . A couple years after that he got an offer from the New York Times. [laughter] and she didnt call me. [laughter] he just took the job. So shes done wonderful work there. Along the way, of course, i think some of you know she won the pulitzer rise for a series on Vice President cheney, investigatorrive investigative reporting, investigative profile of the Vice President of the United States. And maybe later on were here to talk about another subject, but maybe later on we can ask her a little bit about dick cheney since hes back in the news recent hi for recently for evaluating president obamas iraq policy. So what were here to talk about is a book called forcing the spring, which is about the Incredible Movement toward Marriage Equality in the United States. And i say incredible because, you know, in all the time that ive been in the news, ive never seen a civil rights issue move so fast. Never seen opinion change so quickly. It was just a remarkable thing. And i, my job tonight is to ask a few questions and get the conversation going, and then were going to turn the questioning over to you. So why dont i just start by getting jo to explain why someone with a great job as an Investigative Reporter at the New York Times takes a whole bunch of time off to write a book. So i actually was in between two big investigations, and i picked up the paper one day, and our San Francisco bureau, the New York Times San Francisco bureau had a story about ted olson and david boies, of course, the lawyers that fought each other over the presidency in bush v. Gore in 2000. And be joining together to file this case joining together to file this case. It was First Federal constitutional challenge to samesex marriage bans. Cant hear you. Is this better . Okay. Sorry about that. It was the first challenge, federal challenge to samesex marriage bans. And i thought to myself, however ted olson this conservative that, you know, liberals love to hate because he, of course, had won bush v. Gore you know, how he came to take this cause, thats got to be a good story. I went to my editors, and i said, look, i know this isnt my normal fare, but im really interested, id like to do it, im in between projects anyway, and besides, im the only person that ted olson would probably talk to at the New York Times, because he hates it. I had gotten to know him over the years. I covered bush v. Gore, i did all the background for the Washington Post on george bushs Supreme Court nominees, i got to know him a little bit more, and he also figured in this kind of interesting way in the cheney series. He was one of the few lawyers that was willing to stand up and tell chain think and his lawyer, addington, that you cant go to the Supreme Court and tell the Supreme Court that they dont have any right to review your detainee policies and that these people cant even have lawyers. And that was really interesting to me because ted olson was the only person who lost that high level, high ranking official who actually lost someone, his wife was onboard one of those flights. And so i called ted. I said i want to do this story. I did the story, and i couldnt let it go. I, it was this, it was a really audacious thing that they were doing. It was a controversial thing that they did. I mean, there was a lot of people who believed at that time that the country was not ready, and more importantly, that the Supreme Court wasnt ready. And, you know, i describe in the book this lunch scene where they plan this lawsuit in secret, and they finally kind of let in, they invited system of the lawyers movement, lawyers who had been working on this issue for many, many years, and they kind of let them this on the plan. Them in on the plan. And it was like, and it was at rob reiners house. Rob reiner was part of this group that brought this lawsuit. He was really instrumental in getting the funding for the lawsuit. The lawyers were like, you know, you dont know how to count to five. And at one point one of the lawyers threw down this dossier on the dining room table and said, you know, if you do this, if you go forward with this, you know, were going, were going to this dossier on ted olson and every conservative cause hed ever championed is going to be made public, were going to take it to the media. And the guy who is sort of the architect of all this, a Young Political consultant called, his name is chad griffin, hes now the head of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest Gay Rights Group in the world. But at that time he was a sort of operative out of hollywood who had cut his teeth in the Clinton White house. Chad and his Business Partner christina who together they were really the ones that came up with this idea, said do it, thats great, because if someone like this as conservative as ted olson is willing to take this cause on, you know, that has really the potential to change the conversation. So anyhow, i just, you know, once i started following this, i wanted to know. I got to know the tour plaintiffs at the heart of the four plaintiffs at the heart of the lawsuit, and i wanted to know how this would all turn out for them. How in the world did you get, one of the Amazing Things about the book is how close in you are with all the major characters in the book. How did you get that access . Yeah. I mean, i actually, i went to them after id done the story, and i said, you know, its writing a book is, its, you know, its scary, to be honest. Youre sort of, you know, its a big endeavor, and so i kind of set the bar really high thinking that theyd probably say no and then id be kind of off the hook. But are you still having trouble . Sorry about that. Okay. So anyhow, is this better . Okay. [inaudible] we could do that. So thats much better. [laughter] i forgot where we were. Oh, how did i get the access . I went to them and i said, look, i would really like to do this book. Id like to follow it, the case all the way through. But it, you know, would have to, id have to be in the room. Id have to be there as the lawyers are debating strategy, i have to be with the will haves as they wake with the plaintiffs as they wake up and drive to court. Because this case was, it was litigation, but it was also this accompanying, you know, Public Education campaign. And a political campaign. And so i want to be in the war room while, you know, my colleagues are being pitched on stories. I thought that they would say no because its a kind of a crazy thing. If any of you are lawyers out there, you know that privilege could be waived. And, lawyer client privilege if someone knew that i was in the midst of all of this. So we didnt really announce the book. We didnt do a lot of fanfare announcement, and i agreed, of course, my only the only condition was that i was not going to publish before the case had resolved itself. And that was it, that was the only condition. There was no pre nobody had the right to preview or veto. And so you sort of ask yourself why, why did these seem agree to that . These people agree to that . And the answer is, actually, you know, if you think back on it, people say, oh, you know, they were there to have you, theres been some critique of the book that its all, the greater glory of this group that brought the case. But if you go back at the time, there were only two states that allowed Marriage Equality. The majority of the country was opposed. And so these guys could have been the people that invited me, a reporter, and a film crew because theres also an hbo documentary that came out today in to docking unit how through sheer hubris and ignorance they set back the movement by losing at the Supreme Court. No one had any idea how this would turn out. But, you know, the lesson of harvey milk, the first harvey milk was in San Francisco, and i hope some of you saw the movie milk, but the, harvey milks lesson was come out, tell your story. Telling your story matters. Telling your story can change minds. And they believed, they agreed to all this because they believed that if people could get to know the four plaintiffs, if they could see what they went through over the course of these five years that win or lose it would educate people, win or lose it would move people and make them see this issue in a different light. How hard was it for the attorneys to choose the plaintiffs in the case . Yeah. See, normally you think, well, theres a couple of people that want to get married, and they hire a firm. This idea was the opposite. You had, essentially, chad griffin who is gay sitting, watching the election returns come in on Election Night and barack obama is, makes history, you know . Hes the first africanamerican history elected. Chads a democrat. He wants to celebrate, but hes watching on his computer screen the prop 8 numbers roll in. And proposition 8 was the ballot, Voter Initiative to, essentially, strip gays and lesbians of the right to marry in california. They had briefly enjoyed that right after the california Supreme Court said that it was a matter of state constitution. So the voters then were asked to change the constitution, and they did. And so they were a few days later chad and his Business Partner christina and their friends who happen to be rob and Michelle Reiner are sitting at the polo lounge in hollywood which is a very, you know, kind of ritzy place, a kind of heat and greet place meet and greet place, and they are talking about, you know, what are we going to do . I mean, if we cant win in california, they were 0 for 30 at the ballot box by that point. If we cant win here, where can we possibly win . And by circumstance, a friend to have reiners stopped by and heard what they were talking about, fast forward, said, you know, you really ought to talk to a friend of mine, my exbrotherinlaw actually. Hes a constitutional lawyer, and i think hed be on your side in this. And they said, well, who is that . Well, ted olson. And, i mean, rob reiner, his jaw dropped, and he was with Vice President gore, he and chad, on the night that bush v. Gore was decided. They were at the naval observe to have, and they both drove down to the Supreme Court, and it was just this terrible night for them. But it sort of immediately kind of saw that this had gamechanging kind of potential, to have someone like ted championing this cause. And it had the potential to turn it from what had been, you know, at best attar san fight into a a partisan fight about civil rights. So they then set out to find the plaintiffs. And ted, actually, had wanted a different kind of plan. Like, he had a specific set of criteria. He wanted a bookstore owner, he wanted a cop [laughter] and i forget what the other two. They wanted six all together because they figured what if the opposition turned up something in somebodys background. They just wanted to have more. And he didnt want any children. He thought that that was a complicating kind of factor which is, of course, really ironic, because if any of you have followed this, when Justice Kennedy when these cases finally got to the Supreme Court, it was the kids that Justice Kennedy was very focused on. Like what about the 40,000 children of gay couples in california . Dont they have, arent they part of this story . Arent they part of this argument . Why shouldnt they have a say in kind of families . But ted didnt want that. So anyhow, they went on this kind of casting call. They had a very elaborate, i describe in the book, an elaborate ruse where they were telling people they were doing an education campaign, and they did a kind of casting call. And they were running out of time. And when they found chris and sandy, chris perry and her nowwife, sandy steer, chris worked for rob, basically, worked for a state agency that rob reiner had helped to fund through a Ballot Initiative that he had done with chad. Is and so they asked them to do it. They have four teenage boys, and they said, yes. And paul and jeff, they found through their realtor, actually. Chads realtor suggested them. How about the seem that you couldnt the people that you couldnt talk to . How did you represent them fairly in the book . Not the people you couldnt talk to, but the people you didnt get to spend as much time with as you did with the plaintiffs and the lawyerings. Yeah. My biggest challenge was i went to the lawyer on the other side, chuck cooper, and asked him, told him i was doing a book, told him right at the beginning, asked him, you know, could i come hang out in your courtrooms, he said, yeah, never, thats not going to happen. But he did promise me that he would sit down with me after, after the case had resolved itself, and he would explain everything that he was doing. He never did any press all throughout these four and a half years. And so i did, i spent hours and hours interviewing him about sort of what he was thinking and what he was doing, and, you know, its very gratifying to me because, look, these are, these are, you know, these are tough issues, right . And you dont, i dont, i didnt want to write a book that didnt fairly represent the arguments on the other side. Be and i didnt want to do that because im a journalist and i want to be tear, but also be fair, but also because people are changing their minds on this issue. You used to have, as i said, when we started, when i started doing this book, the majority of the country was opposed. Today the clear heart of the country is in favor majority of the country is in favor of. And so one of the sort of lessons about this, and it kind of comes up again and again in the book, is if you demonize sort of the other side, thats not i mean, it isnt effective. It doesnt change peoples hinds. So i was really grateful for chuck for explaining what he was thinking and his reasonings, and i was particularly grateful that thinks at the end of the day he got a fair shake from me than any of the coverage of this case over five years. Yet its still very much clearly about, you know, two couples who are in love and who want to get married. And theres no question that the book is told from their point of view, but im, you know, i felt that i had done my job when he said that he felt that i had treated him with respect. What were the roles like for the plaintiffs . There were a lot. I mean, this was such an up and down, up, you know, and down kind of thing over five years, and no one thought it would take that long either. They didnt even know there was going to be a trial. I mean, one of the really tough moments was i was there with them when we drove to course the first day of the trial, and, you know, everything about, you know, everything thats sort of sacred in america went on trial during these kind of remarkable weeks. I mean, the history of marriage, the history of discrimination in this country, the signs of sexuality, all these issues that had never been really, you know, put to trial, essentially. Not in a federal court. This was a, you know, really very unusual thing. Most of these cases are argued just based on the legal notion, does the constitution say this or doesnt it say it. But on this first day everybody was so nervous, and that morning, you know, chris was, you know, sort of wiping the kitchen counter kind of furiously, and i kind of looked at her, and she said, you know, this i can control, you know . Everything else is nebulous. And, you know, you step theyre four ordinary people, you know . One day youre just like two moms raising four kids, or in jeff and pauls case, you know, he manages a movie theater, and paul is a fitness instructor. And the next day you are plaintiffs in a major civil rights case, stepping outside the van and theres a crush of cameras and crowds, and theres signs and protesters, and its scary. And so you wade through all of this, and we get into a freight elevator and go up to kind of a holding area. And the marshal, u. S. Marshal comes in and says, you know, if you get any kind of threats, it doesnt have to be death, but just anything, let us know because thats our job. And they all just looked stricken, you know . Sandy and chris just looked at each other, and all they could think about was their four boys and, you know, they were harassed, their boys were targeted by callers, you know, who would call them up. Spencer, i cant remember if it was spencer or elliot he was doing his homework one day and people just kept calling and calling and calling, basically saying your moms are going to burn in hell is and just terrible things. And, you know, not, even not threatening, people would find them on facebook and say you dont have to be all right with this. What they werent all right with was the assumption that somehow, you know, they didnt have a loving and great family. Both of those boys are, like, were star pupils, were, you know, really welladjusted kids. So that was really tough. I think the other thing that was really tough was waiting for what, to see whether the Supreme Court would grant cert on the case. And what that means is agree to review the case. They bond at the Federal District court level. They won on appeal. But they wanted the case to go to the Supreme Court even though thats sort ofdown intuitive. Why would you want counterintuitive, why would you want the Supreme Court to review something that you won . That was the whole point of this, was to take it to highest court in the land. And so they, we would gather the court basically had something called conferences, and they basically put out a little list, and they say we could decide any of these cases today. So we would gather, and everybody was furiously, you know, doing scotus blog, clicking, refreshing, and it was like, okay, its not today. As one point chris had said, great, my hair looks like, you know, not nice. She didnt put it that way [laughter] but, you know, and they kept having to get their boys, you know, it could be today because if the Supreme Court denied cert and did not take the case, they would with getting married right away. They wanted to be the first to be haired in the state. That was part to be married in the state. That was part of the Public Education campaign component. And so they, they would have to send out sort of save the dates and then say, dear family, you know, were not getting married. [laughter] and that was, it was just, there was a lot of ups and downs for these guys over the course of it. And also, like, listening. Even the arguments listening, i mean, i describe a lot about what theyre feeling and thinking as the justices are debating. And, you know, the talking about, you know, at one point Justice Scalia talks about, well, you know, ill tell you one he says to cooper, ill tell you one reason why, you know, its rational to discriminate, basically, and its, oh, so gays cant adopt, you know . And theres, like, spencer and elliot. And just saying the children of a gay couple. They werent adopted, they were in vitro, but i really, i tried very hard in the book to, i wanted it to be, i wanted people to come away from this really understanding the legal arguments, really, you know, kind of getting, i mean, if youre like into, i had this thought the youre into kind of legal thrillers, i want you to come to the book and read it for that reason and just watch how two of the west lawyers of their generation best lawyers of their generation put together a major civil rights case. But i also wanted to find a way back to the personal. So i talk a lot about, for instance, some of the gay lawyers in the case. And the kind of special burden that they carried with them. And theres just, you know, sort of a wonderful moment where they had had their lawyer hats on all day, and they put the practice witness, and the witness was there to talk about stigma, and really what he was there to talk about was how discrimination affects people and plays out in their everyday or life. And the lawyers got him ready, and and then everybody kind of testifies, and then everybody kind of went to a bar after court, and i went with them. And they were sitting there, and one of the Young Lawyers said it was like listening she tells the others there, it was like being on a therapists couch, you know . I had had my lawyers hat on, but then listening to him talk about, you know, how stigma makes people feel, the kind of diminished sense of possibility that people live with when theyre part of a group that is hated and discriminated against, you know . She said, you know, i couldnt even call my wife. They this young lawyer had married her wife during this brief window in california when this was possible, and she said i couldnt call my wife wife because and then expert who was also gay said because it felt like a word reserved for other people. And she said, yeah, it did. And then i talked about how we have to own that language. And so those were, thats so you sort of get to hear all of this evidence but also kind of have this kind of almost, i dont know, i tried for almost a cinematic way of telling the story. So one of the things you do in the week is really in the book is really give a lot of Background Information about boys and olson. Could you talk the contrast between them as lawyers and their lawyering . Yeah. So i describe it in the book this way, that ted is like a classical pianist who, you know, faced with some particularly difficult concerto just practices over can be over and over again over and over and over again until he sort of has metro mommic kind of precision. And david is like a jazz player, like always sort of in search of the unexpected riff. And so theyre very, and so they approach kind of getting ready very, very differently. I think, like, what makes david boyce such david boies such an effective trial lawyer is he doesnt have a script. He doesnt go in and have a script. He, you know, at one point is questioning a witness and just something it was a witness put on by the other side. And hes crossexamining him, and the guy said something about his, he was questioning the expert report that he had prepared. And the guy says Something Like, well, its my report, its my report. And david it was just something about the way that the guy said it, and he said so, he just threw away the script and said, well, how many of the experts that you list in your report, how many of them actually did you find on your own . And he said, well, you know, hes kind of dancing around. Circle them. He hands him this piece of paper and a pencil. It was excruciating to hear the scratches of the pencil making circle after circle after circle of the ones the lawyer had told him versus the ones he had found on his own. And thats the kind of lawyer he is. Ted is a, i mean, he is an amaze aing advocate in the sense that a he is always thinking its like threedimensional chess. You know, he wants during the trial he was constantly kind of looking at, well, do we have everything in the record that we will need on appeal. Because for those of you that dont know, you dont get to put on new evidence or call any new witnesses once the case is decided at the trial level. Then it just, the judges above just review the record. And so he was always thinking kind of in terms of how will this sort of, you know, mostly how will this fall on the ear of Justice Kennedy who is considered the swing vote. And both sides, actually, chuck cooper told me the same thing, you know, they were both everybody was focused on Justice Kennedy and making sure they were making arguments that would ultimately appeal to to him. And, in fact, and i describe this early on, the lawyers came up with a list of terms from Justice Kennedy had authored two other major gay rights decisions, lawrence v. Texas and a case called romer v. Colorado. And he, they pulled phrases about Human Dignity and all the phrases that he used not just for the legal arguments that they made. They used them, of course, there. But they gave them to chad griffins political war room, and every press release and every statement that they made contained those, that language as well. So they, those lawyers know the Supreme Court justices. Is kennedy the only one that theyre thinking about . Well, i think, you know, look, david at different times said he was sure they were going to get all nine. Nobody thought that. That was just, you know, bravado and for the headlines. But i think that everybody considered Justice Kennedy the swing. And i think if you look at sort of, i mean, this is yet to be decided because the way for those of you that dont know, the the way that the court ultimately decided this was, essentially, to punt, and it allowed marriages to resume in california, onefifth of the country which is, you know, a huge victory but not the kind of 50state decision that they had hoped for. Finish and they, you know, at one point, but at any rate, did i answer your question . I think i sort of trailed off will at the end, sorry. [laughter] thats okay. So at this point let me, why dont we turn it over to the audience and see what questions they have about this issue and about this book. [background sounds] sorry. Oh, thats okay. [inaudible conversations] you tell us about the judge . Yes. Judge rocker. Judge walker. So judge walker is remarkable. He talked to me for the book which i was very appreciative of. And he had a, he has a very interesting story. He himself is gay and was not closeted, but never had made any kind of public announcement about it. And, you know, he talks about it, how, you know, he grew up thinking and we talked a little bit earlier this diminished sense of possibility that i can never be a gay hand and be, and reach the pinnacle gay man and be, reach the pinnacle of my career. That is what he thought. So he tried to date women. He was particularly moved by a young boys testimony, said it was the most touching of all at the trial who testified about how his parents upon learning that he was gay forced him to attend whats called repairtive therapy, which is widely now condemned by every major psychological group. But forced him to attend. It was so hard for him that he ended up being suicidal. He thought of killing himself, and he finally ran away from home. Ask he testified about and he testified about how he had, you know, he struggled, he was alone, and he had finally rebuilt his life and found a good job. He was working for the Denver Police department. And, you know, as hes talking, judge walker is sort of transor thed back in time transported back in time. And he told me this story about how he so didnt want to be gay that he underwent a form of repairtive therapy himself. And that the doctor that he saw had told him that because he had never acted out and had never actually had sex with a man, he was not gay, and he pronounced him cured. [laughter] and, you know, judge walker really wanted to believe that was true. And he told me that about the same time he saw his parents, they were kind of a close family, and he somehow theyd had a few drinks, and the conversation got around to their sex life. And they were remarkably candid that they had had their troubles in this area. And judge walker said, you know, that would have been the time for me to say, well, ive had my troubles in this area too because im gay, but what he said to me was, but i didnt say that because i didnt want to be one of those people because those people were deviants. And that is how homosexuality was, you know, characterized. It was a mental disorder. And, you know, its hard to imagine today, but, you know, he gets this case. Hes literally leafing through, you know, the new cases are dropped off by the clerk, and hes leafing through it all, and he says, oh, whos suing the governor of california . And he goes, oh, no. And not because i thought when he told me this story it was because he was going to say, well, my personal life is now going to become an issue. But, no, he actually just wanted to retire, and he was pretty sure that this was not going to be he wanted to hold a trial. Hes sort of looking at all these, this case work, you know, the briefs back and forth. On the one side, people were saying, you know, oh, well, the reason that the state can discriminate it against this way is it promotes the optimal childrearing environment. You know, a man and a woman raising their biological cud kid. He was like, well, is that optimal . And on the other side, you know, they were saying this harms, you know, this has real impact and harm, it causes real harm to gays and lesbians and the children that theyre raising and civil unions is second class, second best and unconstitutional. And so he said, well, prove that. How does can it harm . What is the harm, you know . But he was an interesting character. He was not outed until after the trial. A columnist from the San Francisco chronicle wrote a column outing him. But, you know, he said its not that he hid it, its just more that it wasnt hes a very private person. And be that, i was really grateful to judge walker because its really so unusual to have a judge tell you what he was thinking and feeling at every moment of this trial. And the whole thing is unusual. Im not sure theres ever been a reporter embedded in a major civil rights case, like in the same way because of the kind of privilege issues that i was raising before. So you kind of present ted olson as the hero in a way, and im wondering as you reflect back on it because we know how he got involved in the process from the front end. Was he that much of a change maker . He as a person . Be or do you think there could have been other good lawyers who maybe werent as conservative that could have helped the cause forward . Yeah. So i would say a couple things to that. I mean, there are many, i mean, there are many great lawyers who have worked, you know, dedicated their lives to these issues. At that time there werent a lot of the people who were the Movement Lawyers did not believe, as i said before, that it was time to bring either this case or, by the way, the doha case doma case, the law, of course, that was spruk down in edie windsors case which i also written in this book that prohibited the federal government from reck thesing marriages in states recognizing marriages in states where its already legal. So there have been a lot of lawyers who had worked on these issues that were warranting to take wanting to take this case. In fact, ted, when he was looking he knew his involvement would be greeted with great suspicion, and it was. People thought he had taken it to tank it, and he knew he needed someone from the other side of the aisle to be his partner, and david boies was not the first person that he approached. He actually approached a guy named paul smith. And paul is a openly gay attorney, constitutional attorney, very well respected who had brought the lawrence v. Texas challenge. He argued it in the Supreme Court, that that struck down sod hawaii laws. Sod hawaii laws. And so he went to maul and said would paul and said would you cocounsel with me on this . Paul said i, of course, thought bringing this case. Justice scalia in con isnt said dissent said you are opening the law to gay marriage. He talked to Supreme Court clerks who said its very different for Justice Kennedy to say on the one hand the state cant criminalize private Sexual Conduct that is protected by the constitution and an entirely different thing for him to say, in their view anyway, that he, that the states must, bless these unions. Because Justice Kennedys also a federalist, meaning he think that is the Rights Reserved to the states ought to be, you know, protected. And so he, so he said, no, i dont i wish you luck, but i think this is too risky. To your point about is, was ted olsons involvement, you know, sort of Game Changing, i would argue that it is. I would argue that it was. And heres why. Its not that there arent any republicans out there ever who ever came out in support of Marriage Equality. I mean, dick cheney had. Not a constitutional right, but at least in his view the states ought to legalize samesex marriages. But what was Game Changing about olson is, one, he was making a legal argument, and he came from, you know, he was a cardcarrying Federalist Society member, you know . These are not the kind of arguments that most conservative lawyers make. And so he was making this conservative legal case for samesex marriage, and he that changed, i think, you know, a lot of the conversation. I think, you know, one of the lawyers said her own, one of the lawyers on the team said her own mother hadnt totally accepted her relationship with her wife until ted olson came along. She said it was almost like if hes doing this, it cant be all that bad. [laughter] you know . So he, not only did, you know, it garnered huge amounts of headlines. And there has been, i think, you know, there was at the time and there still is a lot of resentment about the amount of attention that this case got and the fact that like it got enough attention that i wanted to do a book about it, and hbo is doing a documentary about it. And, you know, and it probably isnt fair, because there are many, many other people who did amazing work down just south of here, mary bonato, who brought the massachusetts challenge, you know, the first of its kind. And it didnt get the kind of sustained, relentless kind of front page attention, and thats probably not fair. But, you know, that attention, i think, is it was very helpful in sort of catalyzing a conversation that had been taking place in the country. I also think that ted was, ken mehlman and this is a good New Hampshire audience, so i bet a lot of you know who he is, he was the engineer of bushs reelect ken came out and joined this cause and then applied all of the political skill that he had used to getting george bush a second term to this issue opened up an enormous new spigot of money. Wall street, republican money for this cause. Ken did that because ted olson was involved. So i think that this case had, you know, a lot of sort of, i mean, impact and effect. [inaudible] [laughter] ill ask him and get back to you. [laughter] youve received a lot of flak both from the Gay Community and other news, and other news corporations about the fact that youre a straight woman writing about gay issues. How do you approach that, and how yeah, so how do you approach getting flak for being a straight woman writing about a gay issue . I think, you know, a lot of the first id like to say one of the really heartening things about this is that the book was incredibly well reviewed by the New York Times and the Washington Post and entertainment weekly, but one of the really gratifying things for me was, its true. I started to say, i think that a lot of people were opposed to this case. It was a controversial case to bring. I think some of the criticism about the book reflects the criticism of the case. But it is, whats been really lovely is having people like Elizabeth Birch whos the head of the Human Rights Campaign step in and write just a i did not know her. She wrote, and she said, you know, you hues read this book. Never you must read this book. Tori osborn, who is the head of the national gay and he is bean task force wrote, you know, never has a history of our movement been told in so compelling detail. But theres some people that think, you know, you it should be a history, right . Of the entire movement. And what this is is not that. Im a journalist. Im not a history d im not a historian, and what i tried to do is sort of tell a story through a mar set of characters. A particular set of characters. A set of really interesting characters. And i think that there should be many, many more books written about this movement. No one moment can be captured in a single book. And, you know, if you go back to the civil rights struggles of the previous century, you had taylor branch, you know, wrote about Martin Luther king, and you had, you had a simple justice which was very, very focused on brown, you know . Theres room for many, many more books, and i encourage i look forward to reading those. But i think so or the of say to sort of say somehow this case wasnt deserving or theres too much attention to it, its really, you know, i think the detracts from the enormous sacrifice that these four plaintiffs, they put their lives on hold for four and a half years. They went through these incredible ups and downs. And i think, you know, i felt that they deserved a book, and thats the book i wrote. Like i said, its one chapter in a much larger narrative, and i think that there have been very good books written and there will be more. I mean, i know theres more coming. Its becoming something of a Cottage Industry this publishing these days. In publishing these days. Yeah. And i was reading in the New York Times, like, the fact that you focus so much on this issue, and i came here trying to figure out as to why you call in the water shed moment of the Civil Rights Movement. But hearing your story, it is one story about an entire movement. So thank you for writing the book and thank you for answering my question as well. Thank you. So im curious as to what your perspective is now relative to your Investigative Journalism career and papers, serve as multipart articles relative the enterprise of coming up with the book and the amount of investment in time and resources, what did you discover along the way that you maybe either anticipated or didnt about how that would be different than your traditional journalistic career. Yeah. So, i mean, a book is very different from a newspaper story. A newspaper story, even the ones that i write which are always really long [laughter] you know, they might be 5,000 words that youve got to kind of keep people interested along the way. A book is different. This is a characterdriven narrative, so, you know with, you have to find ways for the readers to invest this these characters, to be carried along with their story, to be, you know, rooting for them. And i dont just mean like the one side. I am a journalist, and this is a point of view book, but, i mean, i think youll find chuck cooper is every bit as compelling a character with an incredible story. Im not going to ruin the surprise of it, but chuck cooper, the lawyer who fought this case all the way to the Supreme Court, has an amazing evolution along the way. And, you know, somebody else earlier, did chris and what were they worried about . What was the low points . Well, one of them was they were so fearful of chuck cooper crossexamining them. But it turns out their testimony was intensely, intensely impactful on the last person on earth that they thought it would be which is chuck cooper, him personally. So you can read about that in the book. But we were talking about this a little bit earlier. One of things you to in a newspaper article is you sort of load up everything that you know way up high so you have a lead and then you sort of say and heres all the good stuff, and then you kind of then slowly unpack the good stuff. In a book you want vises. Its kind of unique, because Everybody Knows the outcome, right . So whats been really great in the reviews they say even though you know, a age turner. You just page turner. And the reason you want to find out is you get to know these people in a way that you didnt throughout the five years that you saw the headlines, you know . You really want people to invest this the people that youre writing about invest in the people youre writing about, you want to save some surprises for the end, and you want to, you know, highlight tension. If you read the stories, youd never think that david boies and ted olson had a single strategic difference, you know . Youd never know that, you know, how chris and sandy and jeff and paul are hand picked, you know . You wouldnt know a lot of these things. So the idea is just to kind of carry seem along throughout, and ive tried to do that. People along throughout. But its like putting together a giant puzzle. I had boxes and boxes and boxes of notes. Literally for five and a half years. So, you know, trying to figure out when do i sort of tell this one thing versus another was a challenge but fun, actually, i really enjoyed it. I know this isnt what you were writing this book for, but it struck me listening to people ask you questions about ted olson and your very compelling testimony about his evolution on at least this issue made me think about what you learned about characters. I know that you tell journalistic stories in this book as a narrative of facts and events that occur through a time period, but what about delving into the characters . It seems like somebody like ted olson is a very interesting character. Did you get a chance to talk with him at all about his role in bush v. Gore ask and this outrageous taking away of our democracy . [laughter] no, im serious. Im not meaning to be well, it probably does not surprise you to learn that ted doesnt see it that way, but david does. No, no. But, you know, the same person that was doing what the plaintiffs in your book would think of as horrendous things this bush v. Gore is in push very gorse is doing santaly thinged in this case. Its like what you said about chuck cooper. I knew him shortly after he clerked for rehnquist and he worked at the Civil Rights Division and was trying to subvert everything from ronald reagan. And i cant imagine him having any kind of epiphany like youre talking about, but it sounds like he is cable of evolving as well capable of evolving as well. [laughter] some people have a great man or great woman theory of history, but there are also the not necessarily reasonable people, but people like ted olson and chuck cooper who may evolve, may be good on some issues. Everybodys complicated. Have you learned anything in that respect from your talking to these folks . Yeah. I mean, one of the sort of themes that runs throughout the book is this idea of otherness, right . You know, when you, when you dont know someone whos gay, its easy to say, well, they dont want to get married for the same reasons that we do, you know . Theres a scene in the book where one of the Young Lawyers, very conservative, clerked for judge scanlon on the ninth circuit, one of the most conservative Appeals Courts judges on the ninth, and he initially was pretty skeptical of teds arguments. This is like his kind of younger wingman. But he said as he read the argument asks and as he got immersed into the evidence,s he was convinced this was, inspector, unconstitutional. In fact, unconstitutional. But he said, and it became personal as well because he got to know the clients. He got to know these four people, and he thought, well, theyre in love. Like i didnt for whatever reason, he didnt quite understand how hurtful it was to say you cant have marriage. You can have this other thing. And, you know, there was that same sort of breakdown of stereotypes between, you know, the democrats and republicans on the team. I mean, at one early on, you know, one of the other young attorneys on teds team, you know, staunch republican, you know, walks into the war room and the lawyers and the political guys are sort of plotting about what theyre going to put out to the media that day. And, you know, chad griffin, you know, from the Clinton White house says to this guy matt, jeez, would you stop dressing like a young republican . [laughter] but over time they all came to see each other not as people on the ore side of the aisle the other side of the aisle, but people who were smart people who, you know, over five years, i many gosh my gosh, people become friends. And so i think, i think that thats a real lesson in this, to me, is that, you know, the more that people can kind of see people for who they, just for who they are and not sort of stick a label on them, i think its, i think people end up realizing that people are a lot more complicated than, you know, whatever the sort of stereotypical idea that you might have about them is. Would you consider writing your next book on a subject like that . [laughter] thats what i was getting at. Thats a good idea. Ill take that under consideration. [laughter] [inaudible] sexuality and assumed that you were really thinking about how one becomes gay or doesnt. But its also another side, and im curious if it was ever considered. We read a lot if in the monitor being about marriage being for one man or one woman, but no state has ever defined the concept, as far as i know, and biologically its hard to do. Did they ever consider using that . Well, i think the evidence at the trial was very much centered on, you know, is this a choice . Right . Pause if its not a choice because if its not a choice, then constitutionally it becomes much more problematic. And the evidence, you know, was pretty clear. Both judge walker and the Appeals Court above him, you know, essentially judge walker said the evidence is clear that this is not something that can be readily changed. And so there was, that was what was legally relevant to this particular issue. And, you know, its important. And, you know, its interesting, that, too, is a number thats flipped. The majority of americans now, you know, pretty clear consensus that its not a choice. Hello. You mentioned about the case going to trial. I tolled it a bit i followed it a bit, and there was some of that on television when it was actually taking place or soon after. Can you explain how that happened and whether that was to the advantage, ultimately . That that trial took place . Actually, the argument in the ninth circuit which was kind of a drier appellate argument was televised, but the trial itself was not. Judge walker had a plan to broadcast it via youtube, and chuck cooper went all the way to the Supreme Court. Before this case really, the trial got underway, it was at the Supreme Court on this issue of could the trial be televised. And the Supreme Court ultimately decided in coopers favor and said it could not be. And, you know, it was interesting, chris and sandy on the day it was really for the team bringing the case, this was a real blow, because they really had this idea that this could be be like a scopes kind of, you know, trial, a famous trial on evolution. But, and how were they going to speak to the American Public if the American Public couldnt even hear the evidence. And, you know, so that was a tough, that was tough. And ultimately, you know, there was a moment actually when it was going up, and ted olson kind of liked the idea of kennedy getting an early preview of this case, and so they were sort of talking about that. Chad griffin, one of the main characters of the book said, you know, yeah, kind of like a, p. S. , are you down with being one of the five . [laughter] so, but, yeah, it was a tough blow to them that it wasnt televised. Most of the time when these bans are challenged and overturned, the case being cited by the state level judges is winsor. Not that case. The win sore case which overturned the federal doma law. So if you compare both the prop 8 case in windsor in many ways, nationally, at least, windsor has had a lot more impact. Did you feel in some way maybe you covered the were focused on the wrong case . No. Because i focused on them both. Look, there was a prop 8 case was filled with these again, this is kind of a tale of a group of people who decided to kind of upset the status quo. What they did was really an interaction. This was against the wisdom talked about the importance of marriage and why marriage was important, which was an argument made in the prop 8 case. And they cite to windsor and also in every federal case the judges decided to cite the perry, the prop 8 im pretty sure its every case they cited to the prop 8 trial record and making judgments whether sexuality is a choice or about the harm thats done to gays and lesbians and their children by telling people you cant get married. And so i think that both of those cases have been hugely beneficial and well ultimately have to see what the Supreme Court decides to do in the end. Bans like proposition 8 did not exist when she was growing up, and her entire life would have been on a higher arc. So from their point of view, there was no more time to wait. And what if mitt romney had been elected instead of president barack obama. A distinct possibility, and close to close to happening. And one of the older liberal justices were to die . And be replaced by a mitt romney . Would there be even a possible of five votes at that point . Some then how much longer would you have to wait then . So its thats the kind of neat thing about history. You cant predict it going into it, and its hard to know how things would have turned out if it didnt play out the way it did. I have a broader question, sort of, than which case was watershed, but what really legalized gay marriage around the country and was it a case . And i know kind of this question, you always is it brown or was it the Civil Rights Movement that changed things in this country . And im asking you that question. I know you focused on that because, for one thing, you would have to pull write three books at least and both are person. I want to put you on the spot and really want you to choose. Was it was it just some people deciding in a room, deciding a case or was its movement . It is a movement, and it is a start it is so many important events. It is what happened at stonewall, when for those who dont know what stonewall is, police used to go into bars and raid gay bars. You werent allowed to congregate in bars. And so it was the stonewall riots when the police raided a bar in new york city. It was the a. I. D. S. Activists who mobilized in a health crisis, and people live clive jones, one of the main characters of my book, and the creditar of the a. I. D. S. Quilt, it is 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 but it was also litigation. I think at a certain point this is what was in dispute but a certain point you want to youre basically saying, 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 boat. You couldnt hold a referendum in New Hampshire and say i dont want black people attend the same school. Not possible. And so i think that the debate over when was it the time to go federal and take it to the court . It wasnt that was ever not part of the movements plan. It just was a question of when. [inaudible] and the terrible crimes that happen to gay people just because theyre gay. Over the course of this reporting period, this last five years, there was a moment when our one of the lawyers, one of the young gay attorneys, henry, said thered been this rash of terrible teen suicides. I dont know if you remember these. But 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 intimate act, threw himself off the George Washington bridge, and it was sort of this moment where this lawyer said, i think were making so much progress, i think were doing so much good and then Something Like this happened. And, yeah, those that kind of thing shocks the conscience. One more . Hi. I have a comment and a question. The comment was i wanted to add to what you said in terms of the movement its also been raised, lgbt people coming out. When i was younger, no one would have watched ellen, and now everybody watches ellen, and i think more people have been out all over the spectrum, whether its a sports person and it just becomes part of our life, and i think thats a huge issue that has shifted just in my lifetime. The question i have, though, is where you think this movement is going, and where do you think the bumps will be . I see that having been from california and being out here, its bewilders me that everything moves fast in the east and not as much in the west. I want to go back to your point. That is the number one reason we talk about a movement and different historic moments in the movement and different people, but the bottom line is that the reason that we are where we are today is because people have come out and theyve told their stories, and nine out of ten people now know someone who is gay or lesbian. And that is and that is the number one predictor of whether you think that people should be that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to marry. So theres no question, i think, that people who have come out, been brave number enough to face discrimination that comes with that, and tell their stories, thats all of the credit goes to them. Where is the movement going . I think were going back to Supreme Court pretty quickly. The Supreme Court can duck if it wants but i dont think it can. Right now the two cases theres three cases on a fast track to the United States Supreme Court, back for the to ask so they dont do this on a technicality. One i