Take a backstage peek at the preparation and planning for AFER’s March 26 argument at the Supreme Court. Join the plaintiffs, their families, and AFER’s legal team and board for the personal moments that made our journey to justice all the more real.

Media Highlights

Public Reaction

Billionaire hedge fund manager and major Republican donor Paul Singer helped raise over $1 million for AFER’s federal challenge to Prop. 8 at a 2010 event in New York City, which brought together bipartisan groups from the legal and business communities.

His support has been critical in many state fights, by helping gain support from key Republican legislators, The New York Times notes:

“He has given nearly $10 million of his own money to gay-rights initiatives, including the same-sex marriage efforts not only in New York, but also in New Hampshire and New Jersey. And that figure doesn’t include his assistance in tapping a broad network of donors for individual candidates. He was pivotal in rounding up about $250,000 apiece for the Republican state senators in New York whose votes for same-sex marriage provided its margin of victory in the Legislature.”

Now, Singer is setting his sights on a new endeavor – getting more Republicans who support marriage equality elected.

“Now, Singer says, he’s providing $1 million to start a new “super PAC” with several Republican compatriots. Named American Unity PAC, its sole mission will be to encourage Republican candidates to support same-sex marriage, in part by helping them to feel financially shielded from any blowback from well-funded groups that oppose it.”

Singer, whose son is gay, believes that marriage equality is part of his conservative ideals:

“[He] said that it ‘very well fits within my framework of freedom,’ adding that it promotes ‘family stability’ and is a tribute to an institution in need of one.”

Asked about Singer’s efforts, AFER Co-founder Chad Griffin told The New York Times reporter Frank Bruni:

 “It’s absolutely necessary…We will never win marriage equality without bipartisan support.”

Image: World Economic Forum/Flickr Creative Commons

The numbers are jaw-dropping:

• LGBT youth are twice as likely as their peers to have been verbally harassed, called names and been physically in school.
• Nearly half of LGBT youth say they do not “fit in” in their community while only 16 percent of non-LGBT youth feel that way.
• 83% of LGBT youth believe they will be happy eventually, but only 49 percent believe they can be happy if they stay in the same city or town.

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation surveyed more than 10,000 respondents ages 13-17, the largest known survey of LGBT teens.

Chad used today as a call to arms to make it better for the next generation:

“No one would say that growing up LGBT is easy, but this survey is a stark wake-up call to the daily toll that discrimination takes on vulnerable young people. We have a responsibility to change that, because we know all too well that there are real life consequences to inaction.”

When the state sponsors discrimination (in laws like California’s Prop. 8 and North Carolina’s Amendment One), it tells our youth that the ostracism they feel and the bullying they endure is justified. It destroys their hope of one day being happy and living a fulfilled life.

During the 2010 Prop. 8 trial, we saw that initiatives likes Prop. 8 are born out our animus and hatred.

“There is no group in American society who has been targeted by ballot initiatives more than gays and lesbians. They have essentially lost a hundred percent of the contests over same-sex marriage. The initiative process has been really the Waterloo of gay and lesbian politics.

–Gary M. Segura, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University

Even the Prop. 8 proponent’s own witness admitted as much under cross examination from David Boies:

“My view is that at least some people voted for Proposition 8 on the basis of anti-gay stereotypes and prejudice.”

-Kenneth P. Miller, Associate Professor of Government, Claremont McKenna College

Today’s study about LGBT youth is a sobering reminder that the cost of discrimination is too great, but that there is hope that it will get better. It has to.

Yesterday marked a huge turning point in our case for marriage equality. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals announced that it will not rehear our case.

Here’s a round-up of interviews quoting people involved with AFER’s case for marriage equality in reaction to yesterday’s decision.

AFER lead co-counsel David Boies was quoted in the New York Times:

This is a great step forward toward the day when everyone will be able to marry the person they love.

AFER lead co-counsel Ted Olson was quoted on Reuters:

We’re not end of the line yet, but we are vastly closer.

Ted Olson stated in the AFER National Media Conference Call:

So, our goal was to seek the overturn of Proposition 8 in California. We have succeeded in doing that so far in the district court, and now in the Ninth Circuit…We have an obligation to our clients and to the citizens of California who’ve been waiting now for nearly four years for the opportunity to get married like their fellow citizens. And, we would want to preserve that victory fundamentally.

Ted was also quoted on Politico discussing the possibility of a Supreme Court move:

It would be completely understandable, and we would not try to avoid the full ventilation of those issues before the United States Supreme Court. We’d look forward to it.

Ted on KQED:

The atmosphere and the environment has changed enormously in the three years since this suit was filed.  The court decisions, and our case in particular, have caused people to have the opportunity to talk and think about these issues, and the more they do, the more favorably they are disposed to accept equality.

Kris Perry, one of our plaintiffs in the case, spoke to San Jose Mercury News:

For me, it feels like it’s the decision that launches the case out of California to the national stage.

AFER co-founder Chad Griffin was quoted in the Los Angeles Times:

The final chapter of the Proposition 8 case has now begun. Should the United States Supreme Court decide to review the 9^th Circuit’s decision in our case, I am confident that the justices will stand on the side of fairness and equality.

Chad stated in the AFER National Media Conference Call:

This is a monumental day, and our case has now entered its final chapter. We begin the final chapter of the Prop 8 case today, and the end is now in sight…No Americans should have to wait and should have to suffer this length of time to be able to marry the person that they love.

In Metro Weekly, Chad was quoted again:

Today’s order is yet another federal court victory for loving, committed gay and lesbian couples in California and around the nation.

Chad said in The Advocate:

The end is now in sight. The question is no longer, if, but when.

President Obama’s announcement yesterday that he supports full marriage equality for gay and lesbian American is nothing less than historic. For the first time, a sitting U.S. President has come out in strong, full support of full equality.

Here’s a round-up of interviews quoting people involved with AFER’s case for marriage equality.

AFER Board President Chad Griffin in The Washington Post:

Obama’s words “will be celebrated by generations to come.”

In The New York Times, Chad said:

“If you are one of those who care about this issue, you will not forget where you were when you saw the president deliver those remarks. Regardless of how old you are, it’s the first time you have ever seen a president of the United States look into a camera and say that a gay person should be treated equally under the law. The message that that sends, to a young gay or transgender  person struggling to come out, is life changing.”

Chad was also featured in an interview with Piers Morgan:

AFER’s case was featured in The New York Times’ editorial:

A federal judge in California, supported by an appellate court panel, has ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage violates the 14th Amendment right to equal protection. That decision will probably reach the Supreme Court, and, when it does, we expect Mr. Obama, if he is still president, will take the final step in his evolutionary process and direct the Justice Department to support that ruling and urge the court to uphold equality in every state.

AFER lead co-counsel and former George W. Bush Administration Solicitor General Ted Olson was featured in a front-page story in The Daily Beast:

“It is very sad to me that people who belong to the party of Abraham Lincoln are resisting so strenuously the equality and decency and integrity and treatment of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters,” Olson said. “This seems to be one of the last major civil rights battles of our country. And for people in our country to come out in numbers like this and say, ‘Well, we don’t want the persons next door—who are decent, God-fearing, taxpaying, obeying-the-law citizens who simply want to have happiness like the rest of us’—to say ‘No, I have that right and you can’t have it.’ That just seems mean to me.”

In the Los Angeles Times, Ted said:

The bedrock American principles of freedom and human dignity are central to the political and legal convictions of Republicans, Democrats, liberals, and conservatives alike. President Obama’s words remind us that marriage and equality are universal values that unite us all.  They remind us that we are all — as a people and a nation — striving to form a more perfect union.”

Ted Olson also spoke with Frank Bruni of The New York Times:

“Where does the Congress get the power to regulate marriage?” He’s not sure it exists. “You have to find something in the Constitution that empowers Congress and the Federal government to do that.”

He said that arguments could perhaps be made that the 14th Amendment, which contains language guaranteeing the equal protection of all citizens and was cited in the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down state laws against interracial marriage, gives Congress a point of entry into marriage law.

AFER plaintiffs Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, residents of Burbank, CA, were featured in an article by the Glendale News-Press:

Burbank resident Paul Katami, who with his longtime partner, Jeff Zarrillo, filed a joint legal challenge with a lesbian couple to California’s voter-approved Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage, was celebrating Wednesday what he described as a “very good day” for the gay community.

“This is what America is about,” Katami said. “This isn’t something that needs to be a divisive issue, this is something that should be a uniting issue.”

AFER plaintiffs Kris Perry & Sandy Stier were featured in a video by The Associated Press:

Kris and Sandy also with Steve Jaxon on The Drive at KSRO in Sonoma County

AFER Board Member Dustin Lance Black was featured in The Huffington Post:

“It does show leadership. It shows strength. And all these things I’ve been waiting to see,” Black said. “I’ve caught myself saying, ‘Yes we can’ again.”

Margaret Hoover, AFER Advisory Board Member, wrote an opinion piece at CNN.com:

While the reigning stereotype is that Republicans are opposed to gay rights, growing Republican support in state-by-state fights belies this perception. Indeed, in New Hampshire and New York, Republicans were critical to recent marriage freedom victories.