>> host: who did you call? >> guest: i called ahead of the american foundation for equal rights which is the foundation that was formed to fund this lawsuit eventually, and ted, and i just said look, i'm just, i kind of, i always knew that i would know what the right book was right. every journalist thinks they have a book in them. i always felt i would have to feel really passionate and just i'll know it when a seat. i just knew it. i knew this was the book i wanted to write. i wanted to write a for so many reasons but mostly because this was to meet a fascinating group of people. during the course of reporting this story i of course got to know the four plaintiffs at the heart of this lawsuit and i just come dinner, was captivated. i want to find what would happen to them. it was, as you know, this was not, this is a controversial

strategy to take this cost to the supreme court. they could wind up heroes or goats us back how much did you know about lgbt, had you reported on the lgbt civil rights movement before? >> guest: not extensively. >> host: what kind of reporting it to don? >> guest: a lot of legal reporting. >> host: on lgbt transferred no, no. on bush the door -- bush v. gore. i had written about constitutional law but not specifically about this issue except to the extent that i covered legislators, silly unions would come up. unions, legislation would come up in each of them and this is probably in the early 2000s. it's funny to think today, that was very controversial in these. so i covered these legislative

battles over civil unions but certainly not the landmark cases that you were involved in. >> host: what kind of experience have you had with the lgbt civil rights movement? you've talked a lot about the gay establishment. what kind of expense have had with the organizations that have been leading lgbt civil rights for a couple decades? >> guest: to the extent that it covers the debates for some reunions, talk to folks in the movement about that but over the course of the last leg as i got to know many of the leaders from cleavage owns to mary barnardo. mary filed the first case in massachusetts. >> i thought that she challenged the doma as well as others and i thought actually of us watching all of those cases move along it kind of simultaneous with the case that is would be the one to this report took. but it didn't turn out that way.

>> host: you talked to marry a couple times. we will talk about them that more than a few minutes. you talk in the book that you had unfettered access to the plaintiff, their lawyers, to chad griffin who started the organization american foundatiofoundatio n for equal rights and now is the head of the human rights campaign which is the largest lgbt political advocacy group. so that most of an incredibly interesting. i personally love to be a fly on the wall stories and their many things in your accounting data for an interesting. i know you are on conference calls with them, could walk in and out of meetings, and the plaintiffs homes and got to go -- a tin of them quite well. did you have meals with them? did you have drinks with them? >> guest: i was with them for everything they did, so for instance, at the trial i a ride in san francisco, i took all of my vacation time at "the new york times" just to be in these

rooms. and so i probably arrived i would guess eight or nine days before the trial as everybody was getting ready. what's kind of funny is i was moving from room to room as the lawyers were prepping witnesses and then back to the political war room where chad griffin was announcing this huge campaign that was going to be run in conjunction with this lawsuit. so what's interesting to me now as they are reading this book, they're finding out things that they didn't -- because i was the only one that was going from room to room. >> host: i think as any litigator knows involved in trial it's very intense experience, and i had the impression reading the book you were part of that intensity, that you felt it, you lived with her, that there was a kind of breathlessness to experience. i wonder if at a certain point you felt part of the team, and however you felt that you think the others saw you in some ways

as part of the team since you have these close relationships you develop within? >> guest: i think what's interesting about being a journalist in this kind of situation is the talent i guess, to try to disappear so that people just don't really notice that you were in the room. there are scenes in this book that people love and there are themes in the book that the promise i wish she wasn't there for that particular moment. but i did kind of just disappear and i would show up and over five years you tried to court with people in the morning, drive to every court battle, be in the car with the four plaintiffs. everybody was sitting around and waiting for decisions, and we were having coffee or pastries or eating way too much chocolate. >> host: you said -- >> guest: i'm an observer and a chronicler of what they did

but i was not part of the team. >> host: let me ask you, let's step back to the book, the subtitle of the book, inside the fight for marriage equality. and then at the end just as nice as you would talk but i get interested in writing the book and you say -- described because giving an insider account of this chapter in the nation civil rights history. that is marriage equality but i guess the book struck me as being something different from that as primarily a story about a more limited, with all respect not so well rounded story, not in the sense it develops the pro-marriage equality argument more than the argument against. you explain that in the book but really more that the book focuses on a small group of people. very well-connected, prominently small group of people and offers a largely although not entirely

uncritical take on their efforts to seek marriage rights to a high profile case. so i'm having a hard time squaring the inside the fight for marriage equality and the account of the chapter in our nation's history from the beginning of the prop eight lawsuit until just after the supreme court struck down dome and didn't decide to -- to me about that. >> guest: in a fun way, it took years of work by many, many people to get to the point in history that i chose to write about. so this is one chapter in a much larger narrative, but it's an important chapter in my mind because it's the chapter about when some people in the movement decided to take the cause of marriage equality to the united states supreme court. that's what i chose to write about. i'm gratified "the new york times" called it a stunningly intimate story.

that's the story, that is what i set out to do. i was fascinated. i wanted to know what would you feel like to be a plaintiff in a major civil rights litigation, one that was incredibly high profile and controversial. like what did that feel like a? what was the judge thinking as he was considering the evidence? the judge as it turns out himself to be gay. what does it feel like? i guess ultimately what i want to say, what does it feel like to want something that everybody else has to be told you can't have it. >> host: that's something that actually comes across in the book, and i think you talk very compelling about the two couples, the four plaintiffs who sued challenged proposition eight. i guess to ask it another way, it seems to me that you tell that story of this group and their litigation very well. that story doesn't seem to me to

be an account of this chapter in our nation's civil rights history in the sense both leaving aside what -- even what was going on at the time in terms of people making claims for marriage equality. >> what do you mean. >> host: what they mean is there was this lawsuit. there was litigation around the country. i'm sure you know, maybe we can talk about what was happening right before the prop eight lawsuit was filed. i'm sure you know it but just to share with our listeners. several months before gay and lesbian advocates and defenders have filed a lawsuit challenging the federal defense of marriage act and in particular challenging that law on the grounds that the federal government was refusing to recognize the valid marriages of many couples and the harm that was causing. but even around -- a lawsuit with all of its public and

education work in rolling out four years, the reform but i guess the other thing was several months before the iowa supreme court had recognize the right to marry or two or three states poised on the verge in the legislature, and you do talk about that briefly but this seems like a real -- a very super interesting sliver by just a sliver of this chapter of our nation's civil rights history. >> guest: well look, i think that there was a lot going on but one of the interesting things that i learned over the course of reporting this book is mary, she was the first person to file a state lawsuit, and mary told me when she filed the massachusetts case there was a lot of people in the lgbt community that were opposed and thought that she should not do that. too risky. and when the doma litigation was filed, both mary and robbie, the

lawyer who ended up taking edie windsor's case and successful challenge of dome all the way to court, both of them said that there were parts of the lgbt committee thought this was just not -- the federal court was not the route to go. there was a 10.10 10 a strategy, in a state court, it was a very real concern. i talk about this in the chapter where the group of five for proposition eight lawsuit, which that was so much more controversial than the dumb lawsuit because the dumb lawsuit was asking for less. it was asking for recognition of legally validated lawsuits. so even that was controversial. one of the proposition eight cases filed, you know, he was invited to a lunch at rob reiner, the director who attract a lot of the funding for this

lawsuit and chad had a personal friend, chad griffin. john said it was, felt like the conversation was disrespectful. that it was sort of ignorant of the fact that many, many people have thought of the idea of a federal lawsuit was hardly new. it was not new. as you know because you with paul smith in the lawrence case, the lawrence case of course was when the landmark cases that predated this litigation that i'm writing about. and it struck down sodomy laws. and paul said, ted olson approached him. he, too, have thought of this after you guys one the lawrence case. maybe it's time to bring a federal lawsuit as it was to be able to get married, and he thought tommy talked extensive

extensively. justice kennedy wrote the lawrence opinion, is considered the swing vote on all these issues. terry said he was told by his clerks that it's a big job, that the justice kennedy is a beautiful, flowing kind of opinion in the lawrence case that didn't does this really mean that he was staying -- saying the state could criminalize the behavior. >> host: let me jump in and ask you to describe this in the book and you say it would be an incredibly bold stroke, talk about the lawsuit, the gay rights movement was made up of a constellation of established groups that are been fighting for you years for the right. a federal lawsuit was completely up and the state-by-state strategy, and you go on to say, at the time they were just a few states that let loud same-sex marriage and you going to say chad showed a willingness to challenge the conventional wisdom especially if they

believed -- you going to talk about or are in the book to talk about chad starting a revolution. i guess i can the framing of the book question for a moment, it seems to me that this is story is happening alongside so much other work, and network gets either largely dismissed counties would write about the gay establishment as being very conservative and pushing against this bold idea, or really you mentioned mary twice the no vote and many people look, building l think of her as the architect of the legal strategy. >> guest: she could've been more of -- i love mary. >> host: talk about who you focus on so much as really instead of asking about your cleanness of the whole chapter of movement, it's a sliver, an important piece by seems to me it's a piece of the nation's civil rights struggle. i wonder about the claim, the

chapter. >> guest: look, i think the same that supreme court cases are interesting. certainly there were interesting to me. there have been really beautiful books written about the larger movement and the history of the movement and i'm sure that there will be many more. i think the more books ever written about the subject of the better because a lot of americans are not, who haven't really made up their mind, they can read these books and decide what you want to think about this issue. the more books the better, for one. >> host: i totally agree. but again, i learned things from this book and found it very interesting. what i worry about is that people will pick up a book this is inside the fight for merged equality and think they're reading a book about the fight for marriage equality when what they're really reading about is a story of chad griffin and ted olson and 13 with the plaintiffs bringing a lawsuit that ultimately did not achieve their

grow and as somebody says, really risks the crown jewel of the movement. like they wrought a very risky lawsuit and it doesn't seem that the book takes the criticism very seriously. >> i respectfully disagree. i think, when talking about john feeling disrespect in this meeting, we're going to file a federal lawsuit, so we talked about, it wasn't that anybody disagreed with the gulf, with the indigo. everybody wanted to see that happen, and everybody understood how important it would be if the supreme court were to validate this community and its full equality. everybody wanted that, and the question was, and the title actually, it sort of speaks, change was coming. the country was moving.

demographically young people just don't get it. they don't understand why, why this is even an issue. why gays and lesbians shouldn't be able to me. the change was coming and the question was how fast. that's an important question, and i think what really concerns a lot of people, not just about the case but also the dumb litigation was that they could remember the terrible setbacks that occurred when the supreme court handed down the decision and that decision upheld sodomy laws. what happened was it was just a terrible setback but it was used as proposition for all sort of other things. >> host: absolutely. then what happened was there was a slow building effort, people want to claim for merged equality and even in the 1970s people were bringing marriage equality suits when the law was really bad. the people who have been thinking about these issues for a long time developed a

strategy, but let me ask you this because you start the book and you say this is how a revolution begins. it begins, and i will skip ahead a little, a black seamstress named rosa parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in the segregated south. and in this story it begins with a handsome respectable 35 job political consultant named chad griffin in a spacious suite at the st. francis hotel on election night in 2008. before ask you about chad i just have to ask you, it's not a secret that rosa parks didn't start a revolution, and even rosa parks herself as a book cover in the new york times book review about a year ago -- >> guest: it was a rather deliberate act. >> host: but also part of an organized social movement and it was deliberately timed. i know sometimes in speeches able talk about rosa parks starting a revolution, what i

was surprised to see that in a serious book and i wonder is that because you thought that rosa parks started a revolution and if not, what were you trying to do? >> guest: what i was trying to say was that our moment in history where somebody does something and it changes the direction. i think we can all agree that when rosa parks sat down in her seat on the bus, it meant something. it was a hugely important moment in the civil rights history. >> host: unquestionably but as part of a social movement. i guess what comes across here is the idea that this is -- >> guest: builds on history. looked, the "washington post" in a great review i was thrilled about said she starts her book with a bold claim and she goes onto the back of the. look, i think what is revolution about what happened here is that

a group of people decided that they were going to bring federal litigation against the judgment of much of the people who have been working on these issues, and working very hard and very long. what's interesting, and i think i would love to talk to you more about is this concept of time like in the book. there are two -- some people say it all turned out fine. paul smith is sitting in the supreme court. paul smith had turned ted olson done. said it was too risky. it did risk the crown jewels of the gay-rights movement and all the progress that had been made up to that point. and so, but by the end he sitting in the court listened to the arguments and he thinks as he's walking in the morning, i talked to him, that he thinks that come you know, it's going to be fine because enough time

has passed. the case moved slowly enough. on the other hand, poll, justice kennedy clerk, also talking about this kind of time element and chuck cooper, the lord of to keep proposition eight, chuck cooper very deliberately slowed down the proposition eight case because he believed it was in his interest to have his case argued at the same time as the dumb the case because maybe justice kennedy -- >> host: to question. first i want to ask a question about the revolution point and then what we are talking about now. so do you believe, do you really think that chad griffin started a revolution on marriage equality as you say in the book country it was a revolution step that they took. >> host: that is a much narrower claim, and revolutionary step guess but i think it was revolutionary the way that look, i think what happened as result of this litigation was this enormous

public education vehicle that was built around this litigation, that was, attracted everyone the first ladies, former communications director to the first lady's press secretary for hillary rosenheim. this was a really fascinating -- one of the things that was so interesting to me especially as a reporter was to be inside the those political war rooms and watch as they were pitching my colleagues. >> host: again, it's a super interesting story. i guess, and again, where i am resisting you to some degree is that it seems to me to be over claiming to i guess for a journalist to claim that the marriage equality revolution began in 2008 -- let me just finish -- for journalists to claim that the marriage equality revolution began in 2008, it's

just absurd as in this overt struggle began with obama. so again i think the resistance is not to the interest of the story or not inside the war room. >> guest: i think that's a mischaracterization of poker i to claim it started in 2008. i talk a lot about all these other landmark cases that came before it. the lawrence case, the romer case. this case could not have been brought without the cases that you person argued. so i -- it's not as though there's any claim that it suddenly, people woke up in 2008 and thought, you know, let's start thinking about lgbt writes. i think what happened was that proposition eight was a low point for many, many people. the idea that this could pass in california of all places, for some people it was just the kind of come it was like the last straw. if they can pass here, how can we --

>> host: there's no question and i think you capture abbottabad, and did the survey was devastating for lgbt californians and their friends and her family, people who care about civil rights, people across the country who care about civil rights. so absolutely important, but let's go back to that time. again, the question is not whether the issue was important. where does it fit, and it wasn't just the cases that i was involved in with rome are back in 1996 and lowers in 2003, but ongoing litigation to marriage equality. let me go back to the time issue because you said that chuck cooper new and many people believed that it was important for the case to go slowly. because that would allow, that did happen, more states to recognize marriage equality. it would allow more prominent people from both sides of the aisle to come around and support marriage the quality.

chad griffin and ted olson wanted to get their piece there, fast, and that they were frustrated. at one point you said chad wanted to scream went another, there was another ninth circuit slow down. >> guest: people was a judge reinhardt sa saved the case fore use of they were upset with the delay caused. >> host: and you actually say they wanted to keep the dough may cases to the supreme court. -- doma cases. i wonder why because i don't anyway thought it would be bad for the supreme court to hear and strike down doma at the same time addressing the issue of marriage equality for same-sex couples across the country. so do you think it was more ego? it doesn't sound like rational legal thinking to me. >> guest: yes, and let me kind of layout what the thinking was on either side. a lot of people, like, just felt

it was so fortunate and lucky really for them that the case got slow down several times at several points on several technical issues. >> host: they tried to speed it up, not slow it down. >> guest: that's what i'm saying. that is exactly what i'm saying. paul smith basically said it is fortunate for them that they didn't get their way and that this case big move as slowly as it did. because it allowed for the country to really move in the direction of marriage equality and it created an atmosphere that was much more conducive to the court ruling. so that was why when paul smith came in the morning of the argument he wasn't too worried, that something bad along the lines -- on the other hand, chuck cooper, the lawyer who is fighting to keep proposition eight that it was actually a good thing for him, in other words, that this case of a socially. because what he hoped installing the case down deliberately

several times, what he hoped to publish was that he believed that if doma and proposition it were argued at the same time, that kennedy potentially could say, well, you know, people, the federal government needs to recognize these marriages that took place in places where it's already legal, but it's okay that the states can decide for themselves and go head and pulled proposition a. that didn't happen hospitably thought is a good idea for these people together to the two people who are your heroes in the book. >> guest: but it's important to recognize that the lawyers, the lawyer who want to keep proposition a., this is not -- you have essentially many people indicate which legal establishment thinking that also vote on the other side taking it and the two people who brought this case disagree. i don't think we can know. it's one of the things that's an interesting tension in the book. time is always sort of attention

in this book. one thing that they worried about early on was what if president obama wasn't elected, reelected? if he didn't win a second term and justice ginsburg, she's quite old and frail and you just never know. like what if mitt romney was elected president and what if he got to pick a number of supreme court and replace one of the liberals? then your chances coming in, just became exponentially more difficult. so that was an issue early on. i think any and commune, everybody, everybody was right in a way. clearly the atmosphere was, the time collapse was a good thing to the extent that it created a more hospitable political climate. at the same time, paul clement to argue to the dowler case as well chuck schumer, both used all of that political progress. it's sort of hard for listeners

who are not in the weeds like we are, but they used as an argument that the courts don't need to decide this. look at all the progress that has been made. >> host: we're going to take a brief break and then we will think about sort of which case ultimately have the impact, because you refer to the other piece, the wins a case which turned out to be the big, big victory case so we'll take a quick break and come right back. >> host: so we will pick up where we left off, which is the windsor decision and the property decision and then we will go back. one of the things that struck me

as you described the supreme court's decision in the windsor case, which is a decision that has now changed the landscape. so the dozen, the many courts that have struck down the exclusion of same-sex couples for marriage after these decisions came down rely on wednesday. but i was struck with the way you described it because you almost make it sound like justice kennedy's language in the opinion and his recognition of the dignity of gay people and the right to marry really came from ted olson's vision. you have a paragraph in the book were you quote olson and then you quote justice kennedy and to go back and forth and it was striking to me for two reasons. one, because a lot that language doesn't, from the brief that robbie kaplan and edie windsor filed and also it wasn't olson's case and i wondered, i wondered why. i wonder if it's a bit of an

effort to have olson's team have more play in a dome and decision that perhaps -- not that it was influential, but it was striking to me. >> guest: one of the interesting things about these cases as they converge is there's a tension between the two cases that sort of, robbie kaplan always felt like doma was, a joke in the office, edie windsor was already married, already gay, and so what he was trying to convince the court to do, and in her breathe and in her brief, talked about this gumshoes trying to make, this is a tax case. i'm not asking for some big ezra klein mark thing. here she finds a kind are you alongside olson who is absolutely saying, i want a huge landmark brown v. board that decision, and there's a moment in the book where we are at moot court again and this tension poseable bit and one of the people who is doing the moot

court, lawyers peppered them and pretend to be justices and telling robbie, you need to kind of be more passionate, argue more like ted does. if he wins, i'm going to win, too. but if he loses, i don't want to go down with him. so what i think was really interesting is, like all long for varying reasons, both sides felt like they did really want to be arguing alongside each other. but in the end i think they both benefited from being there together. look, the fact that the windsor, ted olson won on a technicality and is a beautiful thing because if you're at the san francisco city hall like i was watching people start to lie to get married, did mattered to those people that he won on a technicality. the largest state in the union, in the country are now able to marry. that was a pretty big victory but it's not the victory they set out to have, but it is a pretty big victory.

with the case, one of the things probably said, she said as she was looking back, she didn't want to be, should want to go down with ted because maybe was alongside making a big argument that maybe that's why kennedy ended up sort of thing as sweeping as deprecated not have to write the opinion and the way he did, and yet -- what i'm really excited for this one to see that justice is okay but is it with are actually thinking because there's all these lawyers speculate about what they did and why they dated. >> host: yes, i agree will want to know the. just so our listeners are clear, when ted olson's case one on a technicality, the property lawsuit didn't win in the supreme court as you know what happened was the court held, the supreme court didn't have authority to hear the case and the winning opinion was -- a

couple of years ago. i know robbie, have worked with robbie for a long time, and i think she would be surprised to hear that she was giving sort of suggesting that. >> guest: she was quoted in the book talking about that. >> host: the decision came from -- or the claims, the dignity came from the olson breathe, when people can take a look at the reason for themselves but the story in the windsor brief is about the dignity of respecting gay people's lives and their marriage is. >> guest: it was when they read that opinion, it was red, there were several people in the courtroom who started to cry. it was a validation. but she talked that much about the importance of marriage.

just a skinny talk again and again and came back to it several times about the importance of marriage. so i think that these arguments were coming in, that was not at the center of the windsor case but it was at the center of the proposition h. case, importance of what does this mean to society and so what. anyhow, i think we will not really know, but what robbie said was that she felt like, there was a potentially very good thing, that the case was argued alongside the proposition h. case, and the justice kennedy was a bit broader than it otherwise might have been. >> host: let me go back in the book. you talk a lot and maybe picking up on the language of chad griffin and others about the gay establishment and the gay establishment didn't want these lawsuits to be brought.

the gayest ozment was slowing things down and that's where your book is taken a lot of criticism something to light may be the opportune to respond. let me say from my perspective than actually some of the commentary in the book seem to lack perspective on the gay establishment i think you'd very much buy into the of chad griffin and other mostly nonlawyer lgbt activists that the long-standing gave legal groups was slowing things down and probably. out talk about a couple of examples but you talk a lot about wilson who led consecrated the freedom to marriage project and is really one of the unquestioned advocacy architects of this. you come under a lot of criticism. is a common you know, i think the establishment was sort of slowing things down and you

believe, you sort described in quite a critical way his pushback against the chad griffin and some of the other characters, the people in the book. you suggest and then came from a time when gay people -- gender activists had grown up in relatively safer world where gays and lessons were not forced to go great in bars with no windows for fear of being rated. this struck me, i worked with them fo for a long time. he's not that old. he was 12 when the stonewall happened. you get a lot of pushback in the press about that for having only two paragraphs on mary bonauto is investing kaplan was a bit of an outsider but she argued the gay marriage case back in 2006. >> guest: i talk about that. she should one moment when ed hired her after he turned ed

down. i understand litigation is a high-stakes game and -- edie windsor. i describe our people were so fearful. look, they could have lost. we don't know. that's what i brought the concept of time. if it hadn't slowed down, may become we don't know. maybe they would've lost. and so what i've really tried to do here is to talk about, like i've tried to talk about that attention. even played out internally. i may not have, you know, what i try to do is write what i saw. it is, it is a very intimate look behind the scenes like with these lawyers were thinking and feeling, what the plaintiffs were thinking and feeling. i think that there are moments where they all have moments of doubt. let's talk about jerry stewart because terry stood as the main character in this book, she's a deputy assistant secretary --

attorney and one of the lawyers to win marriage equality in telephone at the state supreme court and that's what prop eight stripped away. so that external debate that was playing out in the larger community was also point out inside this case. terry, as much as she wanted to win and one day, she was worried. there's a poignant moment where she files a separate brief that argues in a less kind of broadway, and that creates tension with olson. he doesn't want her to do any of that and one should tobacco. it's not that she didn't want a big win. she did. she talked to me about when she would go to the california supreme court, she was making the argument that marriage equality in initially in california but she felt like she is allowed to carry the pain in her entire committed in a briefcase everyday. early on, some of the bluster of

the dixon done, young lawyers kind of annoyed o her a little bit. she said this is an antitrust case but these are real people's lives. and i think one of the things that i think was really interesting in the book is that i think the perspective of the gay lawyers on the team was very important that there were gay lawyers on the team. and it wasn't just the olson voice shall come and they brought so much to the table. >> host: absolutely. what they didn't bring to the table was the litigation. but you brought to the table a lot of commercial litigation experience. terry did but they gay lawyers from gibson dunn, great lawyers but that's not desperately ask you a question because i'm sure you would like to respond to this. there's been a lot of commentary about the book that has said that you have glorified chad griffin and ted olson, and to some extent david, as visionaries while disregarding

the work of other significant leaders. and that perhaps as a result of being embedded in that group you either were never able to gain the perspective on what is called a gay establishment, or if you had it you lost at. >> guest: i'd like to defend this. yes, i read the criticism of course but it's coming from a certain corner. the views of -- the reviews have been amazing. look, i set out to write a book about what it feels like to really want something that other people have and that you can't have. those stories about visa for plaintiffs in this lawsuit were so moving that chuck cooper, the lawyer who brought them all the way to the supreme court when he saw them getting married on tv, he said, i couldn't help but rejoice in their happiness. what an amazing statement, and i would say that everybody in the lgbt world and everybody that cares about this issue would want people to read this book

and read these plaintiffs stories. they even had the power to move chuck cooper who fought there in the supreme court. >> host: the place planes are vy compelling. i've seen him speak and you paint a wonderful, beautiful picture of them in the book. i guess the question again, it's not a book that purports to be about the stories but what about the risk that because you get so close to them you weren't able to gain perspective, not about the plaintiffs as human beings, but about the claims that chad is a racist -- >> guest: i did that set out to right entire history. i set out to tell the story of the five years between the passage of prop eight and the the time that the supreme court heard these cases and the amazing transformation in the country that went on. i wanted to do that in a very intimate way. i think that there will be many other books that get to some the

things you're talking about, that i think that's great. i wanted to tell a story about the people, you know, and i do think that the perspectives that we're talking about, spending a lot of time talking about, are very much in the book. they are just told through different characters. the dog lived about the frustrations, you know, cleef jones, he was frustrated. he's also a towering figure in the gay rights movement. he was frustrated with where the movement was. but when prop eight past, gays and lesbians were zero for 30 at the ballot box and they've been targeted more often than any other group in america by ballot initiatives. it was sort of a low point and it was a feeling among this group of people who i followed,

and that's actually, ma this is what it did for five years. i followed that group of people. and their frustration. there are also moments in this book that certainly are not in the kind of -- for instance, right, you find out that what it's told it's like hollywood put together david and ted. they don't say that to people turned that down. to people who are towering figures in the gay-rights legal movement best that i don't want any part of your case but i think it's a terribly risky. >> host: i guess part of what may be one need ascii bush is their risk of losing perspective when you're embedded is that they're certain points in the book that suggest that chad griffin or human rights campaign came up with certain ideas, and tommy dee two examples. at one point you say, you tell

really quite nicely about the bipartisan buildup in support of marriage equality, and then you say a number of groups were starting to bar from a chance bipartisan playbook and you mentioned the republican lobbyist. i wondered why you didn't just say it was a big deal for chad griffin to get ted olson onboard because he's a republican leader? did you think that they gay legal groups weren't working in a bipartisan fashion before chad griffin wrote to playbook? >> guest: listen, i spent a whole chapter on new york which i think is a really fascinating state legislative battle. what happened in new york was, ma of course, that was a bipartisan effort but look, andrew cuomo in new york called all the groups together. he said i don't want a repeat, that the groups have been disorganized, have not worked

well together, and he put someone in charge. one of the characters in the book that i find really interesting is that melvin, of course the architect of bush's reelection, came out specifically to join the group that was bringing the prop eight lawsuit. he knew ted olson. it was quite controversial at the time, of course he was widely seen as the architect of some of the bands that were put on about to drive evangelical turnout. but i think he works really hard with evan, not just in new york but all in vain, through mary bonauto and washington trying to recast this issue but i think is really important in terms of somebody put it to me, he turned

down, he showed the republicans why this was in their interest long-term. >> host: did you know in 2004 even in massachusetts and the marriage fight was going on that mary bonauto among others were closely with republicans and that continued in vermont and the continued elsewhere? i mean, i guess again, it's not the information and the stores utah great, but the idea that the gay legal groups were taking a page out of chad griffin's bipartisan playbook struck me as a mischaracterization. >> guest: well, you know, i think that certainly, i think it is fair to say but it was, the past five years this issue is gone from being viewed publicly viewed as largely a partisan lens and much whether a civil rights and basic american fundamental values lend. look, many people deserve credit

for that. i wrote about it for a particular group of people. i hope the viewers will find really interesting and compelling. >> host: they are really interesting. again, it's just a question of what -- sort of the architecture that you build around them, and will people take away from the book something that isn't so true, like some of these ideas are using the media for working with the grassroots, for framing publicly engaging messages, started with a proposition is lawsuit because they didn't. i assume you know that because you get a lot of research. >> guest: yes, yes. look again, i mean, you have seen an amazing shift in the last five years. a really astonishing shift. if you go out and talk to pollsters and people who do political strategy, it's the fastest shift in public opinion on a social issue in modern

history. was this so responsible for it? it was not, but the bottom line is, five years ago, the clear majority of americans, today you have 17 states and a clear majority of americans support the right of gays and lesbians to marry. it's not just a demographic change. what you see is that a quarter of the people who now support marriage equality used to think something different. i think that's the result of people, first of all, it's number one in the result of people coming out. no question. like if we were going to talk about credit, let's start with that its people coming out, people saying, whether it's thad allen or anyone else saying i'm gay. and then you realize, that's my lawyer, that's my doctor. that's a guy who elected bush,

or in the book we talk about, you know, it was chuck cooper's daughter. the lawyer who fought this all the way to the supreme court finds out, ma in the book, midway through the case i discussed how we find out that his daughter was a lesbian, and she's not about to get married in massachusetts, and she is joyfully planning the wedding. so i think it was going to talk about credit and where credit truly was, it's people coming out and that changes everything. rob portman is a wonderful example. was absolutely opposed to marriage equality and finds out that his son is gay, and right before the supreme court heard these cases, came out and this is the guy, rob portman, republicans are often mentioned as a vice presidential or president or candidate. people coming out and telling their stories, whether it's the four plaintiffs in this case the coming known to american, rob portman son of chuck cooper's daughter, that's really where

credit totally begins. >> host: that's exactly something, some might say the organizations have been working on for a very long time and that really is the foundation on which both the prop eight litigation and the windsor litigation, and all of the marriage rights litigation sits. so let me ask you. i'm curious what others have written about and you read some of the commentary, is there anything you would change about the book if you were to rewrite it? >> guest: know. i set out to write the story. i hope there will be many, many other books. i think it will be. this was an incredible important moment in american history, and american civil rights issue, and lgbt history. i think there will be a lot of us, i think, i think i've read that mark sullivan will do a book. i'm looking forward to reading that. so i think the more that, again, if we start from the premise

that telling stories matter, that when people come to know whether through a book or in their neighborhood or in their school, a key person, ma that is a powerful thing and that changes minds, then the more books and written about this the better. >> host: certainly telling, telling stories as we were talking about is one of the things that really transforms a society. and i guess -- >> guest: i devote a chapter to a screenwriter, academy award-winning screenwriter of milk. when the supreme court, the whole benefit of the style, an incredible draw. you have evidence about parenting and science, psychedelic of all this stuff. this would be perfect if we could televise this and it would really educate people who might be on the fence about this

issue. of course the supreme court said no. it was very frustrating because for the people -- i thought it was a great public education opportunity. dustin lance black who was an academy award-winning screenwriter wrote a play and they put on display and judge walker, the judge in the case told me, it was broadcast on youtube, got like 1.5 million hits. if this had been broadcast, if the trial had been broadcast, nobody -- 1.5 many people would not have -- but since george clooney was playing one of the lawyers and brad pitt plays the judge, i think he was pleased to a lot of people tuned in. and hollywood also has a real role here. i think shows like "glee" and modern family are also really important. it's storytelling. >> host: the trial actually is, as you've probably experienced, at some point all

of the points on little boring. it's dramatic retelling is exciting but and i'll just ask you may be what's more, the word i have about this book is not about the dramatic telling of the story, which again i quite enjoyed, it's the impression that i think it tries to leave, which is that this is an account of the chapter in american history running from the passage of proposition eight through the decision of the supreme court not to decide that case. and it's a great story, but it doesn't seem like a full account. again -- >> guest: satisfy your thirst for more. >> host: all right. i thank you very much, jo becker, for sharing with us this conversation about "forcing the spring: inside the fight for marriage equality." >> guest: thank you.

>> that was "after words," booktv signature program in which office of the let's nonfiction books are interviewed by journalists, public policymakers, legislators and others familiar with them into. "after words" airs every weekend on booktv at 10 p.m. on saturdays, 12 and 9 p.m. on sunday, and 12 a.m. on monday. you can also watch "after words" online. go to booktv.org and click on "after words" in the booktv series on the upper left side of the page. >> you are watching to booktv on c-span2. on c-span2. here's our primetime lineup for tonight. ..

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