OutCasting; The state of marriage equality after Windsor (Part 2 of 2)

america is a house divided the answer to that house that it is to end the division couples should not see there marriages or their protections spotter in a noun like cellphone service depending on what state they're in that day or whether they're dealing with the federal government or the state this is testing public broadcasting's youth from radio show dealing with lgbt q struggles triumphs lifestyles sitting straight gowns riedel have to be cleared be here protesting is a production of media for the public good in new york online at mf pg dot org this episode features the second half of a two part interview with evan wolfson is the founder and president of freedom to marry the campaign to imagination wide online freedom to marry dot org in part to outcast and travis talks with evan about the state of marriage equality in the united states following the supreme court's ruling in june twenty thirteen and the cases of united states versus windsor in which the court declared section three of the defense of marriage act unconstitutional and hands worth versus perry was cleared away from marriage equality to be reinstated in california

during the nineteen nineties evan wolfson served as co counsel an historic line marriage case that launched the ongoing global movement for the freedom to marry ivan is the author of the book why marriage matters american equality and gay people's right to marry published by simon schuster in two thousand for in two thousand the national law journal named evan one of the one hundred most influential lawyers in america citing his national leadership on marriage in his appearance before the us supreme court and boy scouts of america versus james newsweek and the daily beast that gavin the godfather of gay marriage and time magazine named him one of the one hundred most influential people in the world in twenty twelve at the mercy of the barnard medal a distinction alongside president barack obama on the previous edition about casting we heard part one of this interview you can listen to it online at them as pg dot org now party they're still states that don't have the freedom to marry what can

there be done so that their state laws are in line with the federal freedom its many of those states because of the anti gay campaigns of the last fifteen to twenty years haven't there have cemented the denial of the freedom to marry into their state constitutions a handful of states denying different mary at the legislative level without a constitutional ban but regardless of whether the anti gay discrimination is in the law or in the state constitution all of those are subject to the us constitution us constitution as you know is the supreme law of the land the constitution guarantees equal protection of the laws that are constitutional provision used to strike down the so called defense of marriage act and the constitution also guarantees the freedom to marry the next wave of marriage litigation already underway challenging summer the state discriminatory laws and some of the state discriminatory constitutional amendments are invoking

those us constitutional guarantees so as the next several years unfold cases will continue to roll out thirteen or so already underway challenging these discriminatory state laws and constitutional amendments but what we know from our history is that it's not enough to file a lawsuit remember we had a lawsuit challenging marriage discrimination in the supreme court we won california but did not been yet the freedom to marry nationwide so how we win we win by going out there and winning the freedom to marry and more states and continuing to grow the majority that creates a climate for the next set of justices when they're ready to take one of these marriage cases are one of some marriage cases that have not yet been filed and do the right thing in those cases when the supreme court takes a marriage case at the supreme

court when it decides to take a case supreme court can dodge this for a while if it wants to partner were trying to do was create a momentum and the stories and the sense of moral justice in the conch at that will help encourage the next set of the justices on the next wave of cases to take one of these cases and then do the right thing when the court takes a case we wanna be sure that we have enough states and enough public support that they are encouraged and in an emboldened to fill the constitution's command and strike down all the remaining discrimination another is a period of time in our country not that long ago when there were laws on the books and in several state constitutions restricting marriage on the basis of race people were told they could not marry the quote unquote wrong kind of person based on race and all of that ended as recently as nineteen sixty seven and the best name case ever loving versus

virginia when the supreme court struck down race restrictions on marriage now when the supreme court hand the downloading about two thirds of the states had ended race restrictions and supreme court finished the job for the remaining third about sixteen states by that historical measure we still have a ways to go on the other hand when the supreme court handed down lobbying and finally got rid of race restrictions on marriage public opinion showed about seventy percent opposed to interracial marriage but the supreme court did its job anyway didn't just take a poll can just take the pulse it upheld the constitution and by that measure were doing much better because we now have about fifty five to fifty percent of the american people supported the freedom to marry so it's a combination of that critical mass of states and critical mass of public opinion that together create the climate for the supreme court to finish the job and bring the country to national resolution that's the strategy that worked we all have to do

in order to create the climate to get the supreme court to do the right thing and of course we want the supreme court to do that not in a matter of decades but in a matter of years we want to get this job done because every day couples were denied the freedom to marry is a day of real hardship and in dignity and justice we all have the opportunity to change that but only if we go onto the war do think that will happen in your career i think it absolutely will happen in my career and it will happened in a matter of years not decades provided we do the work we know we have to do we just have to go out and do it and then the next generation of lawyers and advocates will be able to build on his success and tackle the next wave of discrimination in the next wave of exclusion to help build a more perfect union that we're all fighting for if doma is unconstitutional how did it get an active in the first place well part of the reason we have kind of

constitution and part of the reason we have courts is that sometimes the elected representatives for that matter sometimes the people get things wrong and part of the idea of a constitution is to say there are certain rights certain principles that are protected even if unpopular even if our politicians and our representatives do the wrong thing if if everything was just a matter of well whatever congress says goes we wouldn't need a constitution record and obviously sometimes politicians get it wrong for that matter sometimes the majority gets it wrong i told you that when the supreme court struck down race restrictions on marriage seventy percent of the public believed in the prohibitions on interracial marriage but we didn't just take a vote the court did its job that's what we're trying to help make happen now come up the prop eight case what made it more procedurally complicated and omar actually both the cases at the supreme court looked at have procedural difficulties and

challenges in the supreme court about affirmative time in the briefing and in the arguments to addressing these these technical and procedural questions in prop eight what happened was that the governor and the attorney general and the prior governor and attorney general both agreed with a lower court's ruling striking down proposition eight the elected officials of the state agreed that the court was right to say this amendment was unconstitutional and they urged the supreme court to uphold the lower court ruling being anti gay forces that push proposition eight on the ballot asked if they could appeal and bring the appeal of the trial courts ruling and they brought it to the first the ninth circuit the appellate court and then to the supreme court what the supreme court said was those anti gay forces have no real injury baby had an opinion they don't like gay people that they like proposition eight but they

were injured they couldn't show that they had any particular harm to them they weren't being forced to marry gay person they couldn't show how gay people straight married took anything away from them so under the rules bat doesn't qualify as a true case and controversy didn't have the legal term his standing to be in court and so the court found that the case was not properly before because nobody that we had brought the appeal had a true injury and therefore the lower court ruling was left standing the effect of that however was to restore the freedom to marry in california and it will be the next case that the supreme court takes that will properly present the question we help of whether these kinds of discriminatory denials violates the constitution but we want to make sure that when that case gets to the supreme court it doesn't just get their bubbling up by itself gets there with a critical mass of states on our side

and a critical mass of public opinion sending the message to the court that america's reading the time is now and history will vindicate the right decision just as just history vindicated the loving courts striking down race restrictions even though at the time seventy percent opposed some people argue that the best way to obtain equal rights is to the state governments not the federal government what you think is the best way to work towards the freedom to marry well tara thing anybody really believes that in all cases i think we all believe as americans that we have a constitution that governs the states and that governs all of us and that protects all of us and i don't think anybody thinks that people should have to fight state by state year by year by the by battle to have the freedom of religion or the freedom of speech and the same is true for the freedom to marry the constitution guarantees the freedom to marry because it's something deeply

important and personal and if you don't like gay people then don't marry a gay person if you don't like the idea of gay people marrying don't send them a wedding guest but no one should be able to deny any a fellow american bedrock basic legal and constitutional protections such as the freedom of speech or freedom of religion or the freedom to marry and that's a principle that is best and indicated under the federal constitution in one country that lost all of us some people think it should be left to a popular vote or the legislative process and not left to the courts what do you think well part of the reason we have courts in part the reasons we have a constitution in part the reason we have things called rights is that we don't believe everything should be put up to a vote if everything was put up to vote they would be right to be votes and we will be voting every day whether we like this person or that person or whether this person or the procession going to do this or that but there are certain things we believe as americans are not up to vote and are not even up to

whether we like other people or whether they're popular everybody has certain basic rights that protects them even when others don't agree with them that part of what it means to live in a constitutional republic of america gave to create important principles to the world when we had a revolution and wrote a constitution and launched this republic the first principle was that king's don't roll the people do and in most things we believe the people should decide and they should decide by majority vote not not a king or a dictator but the other equally great equally important bedrock american principle was that not everything should be put up to a vote there are certain things that are inalienable rights that are protected freedoms and that's why we have a constitution and that's why we have a court was there a reason for prop eight to become something that the citizens could vote on proposition eight should never have been put on

the ballot should never been allowed to be put up to a vote the california supreme court in two thousand and he found that the freedom to marry is a protected constitutional right that it belongs to all and that the government had no good reason for denying it's a loving and committed couples who were gay to put up to a vote whether people like that group of people being able to share in the freedom to marry violated the constitution and that's what the lower courts found that ultimately what the supreme court will find when the proper case makes its way properly before the court and ideally we wanna make sure to help a quarter get the right results that when a case gets there we have a critical mass of states and a critical mass of public opinion let me be clear what that means that means it's sitting here today we'll just wait for the supreme court to hand us our rights those of us who care about winning the freedom to marry and reducing anti gay discrimination and protecting bedrock american crystal's half to get to

work now and on our website we've laid out the ways in which people can be engaged in making this a more perfect union we have the opportunity to win the freedom to marry in several more states over the next few years and freedom to marry indeed has set a goal for our movement in for our campaign that by the end of twenty sixteen we want to see a majority of the american people living in a freedom to marry state right now i think as a culturally we have about a third that means we have to win more states yet to go out only the groundwork to public education in organizing this to build campaigns like the campaigns we ran last year in minnesota and main we have to help build support to personal conversations by door knocking by contributing to the kinds of campaigns and we have to have smart good cases making their way and now the part of our movement that's always been the strongest has been the legal are

we will have a good marriage litigation we have to make sure is that our public education and political organizing our work on the ground to win more states keeps pace with the litigation because when a case gets to the supreme court who were really either the court won't take it or they won't yet have the courage to do the right thing we already won the great and important partial victories this year the next time we get from the court again in a matter of years not decades we wanna win the whole thing the way to make sure that happens is to get on friend mary's website and find out the states where we have the points of opportunity for making progress and then in all fifty states we can help create the climate by building support by talking to our neighbors talking to her friends talking to our church groups talking to businesses and others in our community at all which helps create climates that encourages the decision makers

judges lawyers and legislators governors and ultimately justice this is about casting public broadcasting's youth from radio show dealing with lgbt q struggles triumphs lifestyles and supreme strike down we don't have to be cleared be here podcast is a production of media for the public good in new york online at an athlete you don't we're listening to a discussion of evan wolfson president the freedom to marry the campaign to imagination lied about the state of marriage equality in the united states following the supreme court's rulings in june twenty thirteen in the cases of united states versus windsor in which the court declared section three of the defense of marriage act unconstitutional and howitzer ever says perry which cleared the way for marriage equality to be reinstated in california some people say that marriage is simply a contract between two people on that same sex couples should just go to a lawyer and got all the rights and responsibilities of marriage is that possible or not the

first on marriage to the extent it's a contract is a commitment between two people and the state you get a marriage license you don't get a license from the state to go have a private contract but you do get a license from the state to create the marriage because marriage is more than just a personal contact and there is no way simply by personal contract to mandate all the legal protections and responsibilities many of which are triggered within the government you can't buy a contract decided you get to file a joint tax return or that you get somebody else to social security and even if you could the fact of marriage the fact of getting married and this case with aca being denied marriage affects personal dignity effects the meanings and and commitment in the celebration in the statement you make as a couple to your friends and your family and your community and also makes a statement if the law or respect second amendment or discriminate against

even before these rulings we had a patchwork of different laws determining who to be married and how couples will be treated now with these one thousand one hundred thirty eight federal rights benefits and programs and play it seems even more confusing so some of these are based on where marriage is celebrated on a summer the couple is living there and what states respect to what is the future for dealing with that well right now america is a house divided in which different states treat people differently and in which federal programs have still to be made available to all and then there will be tension when the federal protections are are available to couples who were still being discriminated against by their states that the answer to that house divided is to end the division to treat gay couples the same as different sex couples no matter where we live in our own country couples should not see

their marriages or their protections spider in and out like a cellphone service depending on what state they're in that day or whether they're dealing with the federal government the state government the right answer is we're one country not fifty seven kingdoms we are one people and where all entitled to the same protections and responsibilities under our constitution which is one constitution for all of us so that's of course the right answer the way you get there we know from history is through a patchwork of discrimination respect and uncertainty that unfortunately still couples have to navigate until we end this discrimination nationwide our goal was very clear the strategy is very clear and the way we're going to get there is a very clear but until we get there there will be this patchwork there will be this house divided it will be this uncertainty and that's part of what will help spark more people's understanding that there is no logic to this discrimination it makes no sense to deprive

families of stability of clarity of security and not just those them elise but businesses and banks and employers and others who were dealing with these couples nobody's benefited from a discriminatory patchwork and that fly by telling stories and by going out there and making our case and by winning more states we're gonna ultimately put such pressure on this house divided that the supreme court will bring us to national resolution they're still dilma like laws in many states what do you think these discriminatory laws tell young people date or straight there's no question that having discriminatory laws in the books now only are people intangible legal and economic ways but send an unacceptable message of stigma an inferiority to some people some families some kids growing up in families headed by gay parents and also teaches kids who are not gay and kids living in non gay families that it's okay to look down on people who are different

and that's why why oh why all discrimination is wrong really the worst kind of discrimination is discrimination practiced by the government itself and one of the main reasons that we have to fight in and marriage discrimination is that that is discrimination being practiced directly by the government against its own people and we know from american history and very painful an ugly chapters of our country's history how wrong that is whether its racial minorities or women or religious minorities or today gay people is intolerable in the united states that any government state or national be saying that one group of americans is subordinate an inferior to another tilapia begin that sets the tone of how people see these issues and what kind of effect in ruins of this have outside of marriage equality states

yet there's always been a very powerful interplay between the law and the culture between making the case in the courts of winemaking the case in the court of public opinion between advances in public understanding and changes to get a lowered needs to be sometimes the law leads sometimes it's public opinion that leaves and part of freedom to marry strategy is not to pick one or the other but to push on all fronts building a critical mass of states and a critical mass of public opinion tackling illegal discrimination at both the state and federal levels through lobbying and litigation and the kinds of work that changes the law and creating the climate to personal conversations telling stories mobilizing young people mobilizing the increasingly surprising voices that are now can sometimes we can support different american conservatives as well as liberals businesses as well as labor unions those who formerly were opposed have now taken a journey in support we want all

those voices out there to help people change their hearts and minds because that's what creates the climate that enables the judges on the lawmakers to do the right thing and likewise when the law does the right thing when the supreme court changes the federal government from being the number one discriminate or to now being on the side of fairness it helps get more more people think a natural and therefore furthers the culture ultimately what any group of americans needs to do and again we know this from american history is dismantle legal discrimination because as long as the government is the chief discriminate or a law treats people an equally it pushes the culture in the wrong direction if it encourages prejudice and discrimination and it also deprives people that corn protections responsibility so we need to change the law but our work is not done just when we changed a lot because we need to bring but the personal lived experience of inclusion and respect and support to everyone in every part of a country in every family and important as it is to change legal

discrimination a trooper assets two justice our work will never be done because there will always be the next person the next family the next community whose day to day life he's also heartened by prejudice or neglect or exclusion or fear and some of that is unreachable to the law and some are that requires our own personal engagement to create a truly just society as anything else you'd like to discuss that we haven't talked about no one is the best messenger for everyone each one of us is the best messenger for some that means that whether you're a student or a lawyer whether you're living in new york or alabama each one of us can make a contribution that adds to the momentum that created the climate that enables this share a campaign to get the job done so people who are hopefully listening to this program won't just hopefully it's an interesting discussion and something that involves lawyers reports

that it's actually something that each one of us as americans as as human beings under this constitution had the opportunity to make a difference and young people have an incredibly important role to play they're part of our success it's being propelled by our generational momentum that younger people across the political spectrum have grown up now in the midst of this conversation about gay people and the freedom to marry and while we've now grown public support to about fifty three or fifty five fifty eight percent depending on the poll opera twenty seven percent to seventeen years because we've doubled in about seventeen years of very quick historical progress younger support he's now at about eighty one percent so young people are the future of this fight and if young people listen to this program or make a difference and be part of history go to the web site sign up and get involved display of work to be done and we want this to go as quickly as we can get it to happen thank you so much for joining us here is my pleasure evan wolfson is the founder and president of freedom to marry the campaign to

imagination lot of our mind that freedom to marry dot org during the nineteen nineties evan wolfson served as co counsel on the historic lie a marriage case that launched the ongoing global movement for the freedom to marry berman is the author of the book why marriage matters american inequality and gay people's right to marry published by simon and schuster in two thousand for in two thousand the national law journal named evan one of the one hundred most influential lawyers in america citing his national leadership on marriage and his appearance before the us supreme court and boy scouts of america versus james d newsweek and the daily beast dugout than the godfather of gay marriage and time magazine named him one of the one hundred most influential people in the world in twenty twelve and received a medal of distinction alongside president barack obama that's it for this edition about casting public broadcasting's you've run radio show dealing with lgbt q struggles triumphs lifestyle than singing straight gowns read all have to be queer to be here the

show's been pretty steady out testing team including new participants last year chris josh george matisse sydney travis and nicole our executive producers marc sofas outcast is a production of media for the public good in europe goes into this program or any other nation about casting visit us at mf pg dot org connect with us on twitter facebook tumblr and youtube out that testing media and nicole thanks for joining us today and again next time