Newsweek: The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage

It has the innocuous sounding name of "Perry v. Schwarzenegger." It's commonly known as the "Prop. 8. Case." It begins in Federal Court his morning. It is also an incredibly important case for GLBT Americans.

Ted Olsen is the lead attorney for those opposing CA's Proposition 8. He's also recognized as a huge conservative having served as Solicitor General during the first George W. Bush administration and as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel during the Reagan Administration. He makes the case that no matter what one may feel about gays and lesbians, overturning Prop 8 and the thinking behind it is the American thing to do.

The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage

Why same-sex marriage is an American value.

By Theodore B. Olson | NEWSWEEK 

Published Jan 9, 2010

From the magazine issue dated Jan 18, 2010

Together with my good friend and occasional courtroom adversary David Boies, I am attempting to persuade a federal court to invalidate California's Proposition 8—the voter-approved measure that overturned California's constitutional right to marry a person of the same sex.

My involvement in this case has generated a certain degree of consternation among conservatives. How could a politically active, lifelong Republican, a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, challenge the "traditional" definition of marriage and press for an "activist" interpretation of the Constitution to create another "new" constitutional right?

My answer to this seeming conundrum rests on a lifetime of exposure to persons of different backgrounds, histories, viewpoints, and intrinsic characteristics, and on my rejection of what I see as superficially appealing but ultimately false perceptions about our Constitution and its protection of equality and fundamental rights.

( Read more... )

Americans who believe in the words of the Declaration of Independence, in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, in the 14th Amendment, and in the Constitution's guarantees of equal protection and equal dignity before the law cannot sit by while this wrong continues. This is not a conservative or liberal issue; it is an American one, and it is time that we, as Americans, embraced it.

Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/229957

© 2010