Moyers Moments

Moyers Moment (2010): Olson and Boies Make the Case for Marriage Equality

May 9, 2012
by billmoyers.com
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Ted Olson and David Boies — two courtroom titans who’d battled each other all the way to the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore — came together to challenge California’s Proposition 8, which ordered the state constitution to define marriage as the union between one man and one woman. In this 2010 Moyers Moment from Bill Moyers Journal, they explain the constitutional basis for their argument.

Watch the full conversation with Ted Olson and David Boies.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Thommy-Berlin/1608946563 Thommy Berlin

    Being anti constitution is nothing new for American conservatives. From the negation of habeas corpus to the mutilation of the pledge of allegiance. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=59201723 Alex Wyatt

    skip to amendment 2 and stop reading after it…that’s their motto

  • Disc34

    As Americans, we have lost our way as a people and community by dividing ourselves through the concept of democracy. We fight for independent, individual rights without concern for the outward results of them on a moral basis within our community, culture, and society. When personal rights become more important than moral living and public accountability to other neighboring citizens, we’ve over-stepped our bounds as an integral nation under God. How prideful and dishonoring we have become in stripping away the definition of institutions such as marriage for the sake of personal rights and public opinion.

  • wtaylorstudio

    In America, we are SUPPOSED to be equal, and have EQUAL rights.

  • http://www.facebook.com/daria.rizzi Daria Rizzi

     we haven’t lost our way, we’ve forged a better way. How is marriage equality immoral and bad for the community? What’s bad for our communities is to deny civil/equal rights to our neighbors, and you’re the problem. You have a moral responsibility  not to impose your beliefs on me and I to you. But your beliefs are just that, what you believe…not what I believe, and this argument has nothing to do with beliefs, it has to do with law. Equal rights under the law. Marriage only has sanctity as an institution to religions, not to law. Try to get that straight, we don’t all believe in your God or your Bible or your morality. Home of the free (not Bible-bound) and the brave (not fearful of your God’s wrath). Freedom is for everyone, equality is for everyone, or did the Civil War teach you nothing?! Do you even remember that little skirmish and how it tore this country apart because those good Christians in the South decided it was okay to own human beings to make their crops more profitable. And to beat and kill and rape those human beings if they “got out of line” or for any other reason. Wake up and smell progress you poor, pathetic, fearful, bible-thumper. And oh by the way, I’m not gay.

  • Birthe

    thank you Bill for bringing these important issues to us all. I have never had problems with gay or lesbian people. All the people I have met here and in Denmark where I grew up were very fine, well educated and tolerant people themselves. I think things are changing here in the US, people are getting smarter, knowing more about the issue, and more tolerant and find that some of their friends need support and kindness to enjoy happy marriage with a same sex partner.  Birthe

  • Jacqueline Laughlin

    thanks again, for a thoughtful informative conversation about complex issues. We can agree to disagree, but in a democracy, our ability to have a dialogue  is crucial.  When we paint everything with a broad brush, we are all harmd.

  • pandora

    Thank you for your words of reason in a time when people don’t want to hear it!!

  • http://2000ah.blogspot.com/ edward

    Why should gay people not have to get married. stick them with the same head aches as the rest of us:)