Last week a federal judge in California struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage, ruling that voter-approved Proposition 8 violates the U.S. Constitution — handing supporters of gay rights a major victory, at least in the short term.
The legal odd couple who was successful in the California case, the liberal David Boies and conservative heavyweight Ted Olson, appeared on separate Sunday morning talk shows to discuss what actually happened in the courtroom and in Judge Vaughn Walker's decision, and what will happen going forward.
The more interesting parrying occurred on Fox News Sunday, where Chris Wallace asked what he said he's been asked and no doubt has been a source of discussions in conservative circles over the past year — why is the famously conservative Olson, who won against Boies in the memorable Bush v. Gore decision that decided the 2000 presidential election, fighting for the rights of same-sex couples?
'We believe that a conservative value is stable relationships and stable community and loving individuals coming together and forming a basis that is a building block of our society, which includes marriage," said Olson.
Earlier in the discussion, Wallace pushed hard on the fact that Judge Walker's decision had in essence invalidated the votes of the 7 million Californians who voted for Prop 8 in November of 2008. But Olson, the former Solicitor General for George W. Bush, said the Supreme Court has ruled that marriage was a fundamental right and pointed out that the Constitution made no explicit mention of interracial marriage, to answer Wallace's question about where it mentioned the right to same-sex marriage:
OLSON: Well, would you like your right to free speech? Would you like Fox’s right to free press put up to a vote and say well, if five states approved it, let’s wait till the other 45 states do? These are fundamental constitutional rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees Fox News and you, Chris Wallace, the right to speak. It’s in the Constitution. And the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the denial of our citizens of the equal rights to equal access to justice under the law, is a violation of our fundamental rights. Yes, it’s encouraging that many states are moving towards equality on the basis of sexual orientation, and I’m very, very pleased about that. … We can’t wait for the voters to decide that that immeasurable harm, that is unconstitutional, must be eliminated.
