'Husbands': Gay Marriage Gets the 'Mad About You' Treatment

The show follows the adventure of two out gay men--Cheeks, an actor, and Brady, a professional baseball player--who after dating for six weeks, get drunkenly hitched in Vegas. They decide to stay together, for the cause of marriage equality, and for each other. While gay couples are increasingly common on television, from the sweet pairing of Kurt and Blaine on Glee, to Mitch and Cam, the settled...

The Atlantic • Sep 12, 2011

15 Years After DOMA, Hearing Reveals a Nation Transformed

Back in 1996, no senator was calling the antigay forces on their lies, damn lies, and statistics. No senator approvingly quoted his state's married same-sex couples or invited white-bread suburban lawnmowing gay men and lesbians to tell the heartbreaking disaster stories about being excluded from full marriage recognition. This time, perhaps no Republican senator was yet willing to urge DOMA's rep...

The Atlantic • Jul 21, 2011

So What Was Judge Vaughn Walker's Trial Like, Anyway?

This is why the Prop 8 team was routed at trial. It wasn't Judge Walker's evil gay plot. It wasn't his "inherently bad" subconscious. It was because the "proponents" didn't back up their "proposition" with credible evidence. It's no more complicated than that....

The Atlantic • Jun 14, 2011

Prop 8 Trial Bias: Another Wall's About To Tumble Down

Judge Walker may well have gotten his law wrong. But the argument that a judge should himself be judged by his sexual orientation rather than by his work product -- that a gay judge can't sit in judgment of gay causes or cases because of some predetermined bias -- is the very sort of discrimination against which gays and lesbians (and other minority groups) have long fought. The argument, indeed, ...

The Atlantic • Jun 12, 2011

10 Takeaways From Obama's DOMA Reversal

There are two components to Wednesday's move by the White House and Justice Department. The first, the declaration by Obama that he believes Section 3 is unconstitutional, is more significant politically than legally. After all, it's the federal judiciary and not the executive branch which gets to decide which laws are valid or not, a point Attorney General Eric Holder was wise to mention. Also wi...

The Atlantic • Feb 24, 2011

The Banning of the Bans on Same-Sex Marriage

Judge Tauro was willing to toss the federal marriage act even after applying the most lax constitutional test to it. Based upon his questions, it looks like Judge Walker is noodling these days over which constitutional standard to apply to his analysis of the legitimacy of Prop 8. If he takes the Tauro route, and I won't be shocked if he does, Prop 8 is doomed -- perhaps even before the United Sta...

The Atlantic • Jul 18, 2010

How the GOP is Saving Gay Marriage

Nearly as significant as the decision itself is the political affiliation of the judge who made it: 79-year-old Joseph Tauro, the longest-serving appointee of Richard Nixon. Why is this significant? Because while the recent confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan dwelt on whether ''activist'' liberal judges appointed by Democrats would trample legal precedent, the judges who have begun the constitut...

The Atlantic • Jul 16, 2010

Why Did So Many Pro-Prop 8 Witnesses Back Out Of Testifying?

After pre-trial depositions, many pro-Prop 8 witnesses backed out of testifying, citing fear of reprisals in response to their testimony. Anti-Prop 8 lawyer David Boies is asked what he did to scare them off during the depositions:...

The Atlantic • Jul 11, 2010

Prop. 8 Challenged In Court...And At The Voting Booth?

No single entity or oligarchy is in charge of the gay equality movement in California. Conference calls and discussions between groups now focus on how a decision will eventually be made on whether or not to put equal marriage on the ballot--a framework for making the call. "It's a process of trying to figure out what a campaign structure would look like, and how we should decide whether to launc...

The Atlantic • Jul 12, 2009

Interview: He Brought Same-Sex Marriage To Iowa

One of the reasons this case was filed in Iowa [was that the state has a] history of being, progressive, of protecting individual liberties. If you read the opinion, they make references to decisions as early as 1839 [like the one] prohibiting slavery in Iowa. They were pretty mindful of that. The fact that they were unanimous - I wasn't completely surprised by that. I've been before these justice...

The Atlantic • Apr 12, 2009