“A lonely place for a person to lie”: Why this lesser-known trial on marriage equality is so importa

“A lonely place for a person to lie”: Why this lesser-known trial on marriage equality is so important

The trial over Prop 8 is an underappreciated, watershed moment in our history, NYU Law's Kenji Yoshino tells Salon

ELIAS ISQUITH

It can be hard to remember this today — now that the fight for marriage equality and gay rights is going so well that some activists are warning against “victory blindness” — but, in the grand scheme of things, it was just about five minutes ago that supporting equal marriage was not a mainstream position. The new consensus is so young, in fact, that it hasn’t even been seven years since voters in California, the most socially progressive state in the nation, tried to strip their fellow citizens of their rights by voting for Proposition 8.

Despite marriage equality’s still not being recognized as a constitutional right, however, the conventional wisdom holds that the fight is over and that supporters of same-sex marriage have won. And while this shift in social norms was a long time coming, and the result of countless activists and decades of organizing, the transition also had its signal moments: the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling in 2003, the passage of Washington State’s Referendum 74, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s signing the Marriage Equality Act into law, etc.

But according to the new book from New York University School of Law professor Kenji Yoshino, there’s another important episode in the story of marriage equality that many are leaving out — the Hollingsworth v. Perry case, which ultimately led to the striking down of Proposition 8. In “Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial,” Yoshino examines the case, its legal significance, and its broader influence on American culture. Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Yoshino about his book and the importance of trials as vehicles for public education. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length and can be found below.

What was it about this case that you felt deserved a book-length treatment?

I actually came into writing the book because I read the District Court opinion on Aug. 4, 2010, and thought that it looked pretty unusually meticulous. So that sent me back to the 3,000-page trial transcript … and when I started reading the transcript … I felt like it was the most rigorous conversation about same-sex marriage that our nation had ever seen.

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http://www.salon.com/2015/04/23/a_lonely_place_for_a_person_to_lie_why_this_lesser_known_trial_on_marriage_equality_is_so_important/