Redeeming the Dream
The Case for Marriage Equality
-
- $19.99
-
- $19.99
Publisher Description
“Breathtakingly inspiring.” —Laurence H. Tribe, Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School
When advocates for marriage equality sought to challenge California’s notorious Proposition 8, they were fortunate to have the support of two of the nation’s preeminent lawyers, David Boies and Theodore B. Olson. Despite the fact that they had argued against one another in the landmark Bush v. Gore case, their commitment to the marriage issue led them to join forces, ultimately defeating the unconstitutional proposition in the Supreme Court after a nearly five-year battle. Redeeming the Dream is the definitive inside account of the key civil rights struggle of our time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The lawyers who overturned California's Proposition 8 offer a carefully crafted, highly accessible play-by-play of the complex four-and-a-half-year legal battle over the gay and lesbian right to marry. In 2008, Rob and Michelle Reiner, Kristina Schake, Chad Griffin, and their new organization, the American Foundation for Equal Rights, solicited Olson as the lawyer most likely to take a challenge of the popularly enacted referendum all the way to the Supreme Court, despite his conservative reputation. Olson had already turned down the opposition and believed strongly that "marriage equality was a truly conservative ideal, based on bedrock values such as liberty, freedom, and equality." He reached out to Boies, his opponent in Bush v. Gore in 2000, who became a respected friend, to join him both for his consummate skill as a trial lawyer and as evidence of credible bipartisan support for marriage equality. Together they built a case with well-chosen plaintiffs. Here, they walk a fine line, showing themselves as incontrovertibly in the right, while not devolving into self-aggrandizement. Their clear explanations about the landmark case and the judicial process in general will leave readers well-prepared to follow the subtleties of the discussion as individual states take on the gay marriage issue.
