The Guy Who Gave us George W. Bush Might Also Help Give us Nationwide Gay Marriage

by Michael Jones · 2009-08-19 06:57:00 UTC
Topics:

Ted Olson

The federal court case challenging California's Proposition 8 gets its first day in court today, although the drama won't be between folks who support marriage equality and folks who don't.  Instead, a Judge will decide whether a group of LGBT organizations and the City of San Francisco can join power lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies in their lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Prop 8.

There's more on the internal dynamics of this case over at Law Dork (one of the best LGBT legal blogs around).  Today's NY Times has a profile on one of the lawyers who originally brought the case - Ted Olson. Olson is an interesting character to a lot of folks.  He's a renowned conservative legal practitioner, who not only has a picture of Ronald Reagan hanging proudly in his office, but was the man responsible for arguing on George W. Bush's behalf during the 2000 Bush v. Gore U.S. Supreme Court case.  Seems like a funny person to be championing the fight for marriage equality, given that President GWB wanted a constitutional amendment banning it.

But as Olson tells the NYT, people need to look deeper at who he is, rather than what his career might be.  “For conservatives who don’t like what I’m doing, it’s, ‘If he just had someone in his family we’d forgive him,’ ” Olson said. “For liberals it’s such a freakish thing that it’s, ‘He must have someone in his family, otherwise a conservative couldn’t possibly have these views.’ It’s frustrating that people won’t take it on face value.”

What is the face value here?  Well, as Olson puts it, he has long been troubled by discrimination against LGBT people.  According to the ABA Journal, "He sees his stance as consistent with his view that the government should not discriminate."

Olson's profile in the NYT is a fascinating read.  Whatever stereotypes you might have of a man who led the fight against affirmative action and who counseled members of President Bush's administration in the wake of September 11, this is still a lawyer who has won 44 out of 55 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Should this case make it that far, it may become his most important case ever.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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