Redeeming the Dream: The Case for Marriage Equality
by Ted Olson and David Boies
a Review by Raphael Klarfeld, M.D.
I was initially very excited to be reading this historical work by two famous attorneys, unlikely bedfellows, having represented opposite sides in the argument in the Supreme Court about the Florida vote count in the Bush Gore Campaign. I anticipated some really excellent writing and some enlightenment as to how these two men came together to fight Prop 8. I did gain some insight perhaps about why Ted Olson took up what has been a left wing fight. I think it was two things: The first was stated which was that he believed that Proposition 8 violated the United States Constitution. The second was not overtly stated and the motivation appears to me to have been self-adulation and the desire for fame.
I will comment first on the writing of the book. It was an account, a blow by blow description of the series of events from the time of passage of Prop 8 forward. As I read it, it did hold my attention, and it did contain some accounts of the emotions of the plaintiffs and some of the emotions of the attorneys. It seemed unrealistically positive. I would think in trials where this much is at stake, that there would be some areas where the two attorneys who agreed to do this might be at odds about how matters should be handled. It seemed to me that both attorneys were extraordinarily careful to point out each others skills and best legal specialties. There was little or no disagreement between them and their work with each other went on so seamlessly throughout the trials that it made it difficult to believe and, frankly, uninteresting. One is a hard right wing conservative, the other a liberal and they managed this whole pro bono series of legal battles without arguments, faux pas, or glitches. It is just not very believable and kind of boring. It just seems like maybe some things were unsaid.
The other detail that made this book seem "self-reverential" as one Amazon reviewer put it, is that there was so much history of other people who were a part of this fight and had brought it to the point that these lawyers could proceed with their work. None of that history was mentioned in the book. Nobody else got any of the credit except Olson and Boies. First of all, there was the passage of Proposition 22 passed in 2000 making marriage between a man and a woman. There was the fight in the California Supreme Court finally striking it down as unconstitutional after a long battle in 2008. There was, for example, the fight led by assemblyman Mark Leno who managed to get AB 839 passed in 2005 making marriage between two people that Governor Schwarzennegger then vetoed. He got it passed again in 2007 and the governor vetoed it again. The roles played by other organizations involved were hardly mentioned if at all. How about Gavin Newsom's efforts in 2004 in San francisco to issue marriage licenses?
I may be unduly suspicious, and things may have been just as they were painted throughout Redeeming the Dream. If so, the story was not that interesting. The things that were the most interesting were all of the things discovered about the tactics of the Mormon and Catholic Churches. Many of those things probably could not be admitted into evidence. Maybe that is why they did not make it into the book. After all was said and done, the Supreme Court decision changed nothing except in California, and it was not because of the skill of these two attorneys. It was because the other side did not have standing.
