Forcing the Spring: Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality Read Online Free Page A

circular brick driveway of the Reiners’ home in Brentwood the following month, Olson wondered what type of reception awaited him. He knew he was seen as something of the devil incarnate in liberal circles like the Reiners’. But the movie director could not have been more welcoming when he greeted him at the door. Rob trusted Chad’s instincts—he simply wanted to hear for himself what journey had brought Olson to his home, and this cause.
    Walking Olson through his home, he explained its storied history. The actor Henry Fonda, an ardent Democrat, had planted its rose bushes when he owned it. The liberal producer Norman Lear, who gave Rob his first big break when he cast him as Archie Bunker’s son-in-law “Meathead” in the 1970stelevision show
All in the Family,
had lived in it next. All told, the director told Olson, more money had been raised for Democratic candidates here than perhaps any other home in Hollywood.
    “I certainly never thought you would be in my living room,” the director joked as they entered the comfortable, tastefully decorated space.
    Chad and Kristina were already there. Bruce Cohen, an Academy Award–winning producer of box office hits like
American Beauty,
soon joined the group. Chad and Cohen had gotten to know one another when the two put together a high-dollar fund-raiser to fight Proposition 8, and Cohen had been with Chad and Kristina on election night at the Westin St. Francis. Cohen was a gay Yale graduate whose political activism dated back to childhood door knocking on behalf of Democratic candidates in Virginia.
    He was a strategic thinker, and, as important, he had credibility with the gay rights community that Chad knew they would need to mollify if they were to move forward with a lawsuit; Cohen’s latest film was a biopic about the first openly gay elected official in the United States, San Francisco city supervisor and activist Harvey Milk.
    The night before, Chad had called him to explain what the group was contemplating and invite him to meet Olson. “What do you think the lesson of Obama’s election was?” Chad had asked.
    “The time for playing it safe, the time for waiting, is over,” Cohen answered.
    Every major gay rights legal group in the country had adopted the slogan “Make Change, Not Lawsuits,” issuing press releases that stated that the fastest way to win the freedom to marry was through state courts and state legislatures. “One thing couples shouldn’t do is just sue the federal government,” read one. “Pushing the federal government before we have a critical mass of states recognizing same sex relationships, or suing in states where the courts aren’t ready is likely to get us bad rulings.”
    But Cohen did not feel time was necessarily on the side of the gay community. The chances that the Supreme Court was going to become more liberal over time seemed slim to him: The conservative justices were among the youngest on the Court, and who knew whether Obama would be reelected? Maybe it was that he could still remember watching his dad, a well-known labor lawyer, argue a case before the Supreme Court on behalf of workers, but he had faith in the justices.
    “I’m in,” he had told Chad.
    Now, walking across the room, he introduced himself to the lawyer. Olson chatted about Cohen’s film
Milk,
which he had recently seen. Then the group moved into the dining room for a simple lunch of fish and salad.
    Rob Reiner typically dominated conversations. But he was uncharacteristically silent as Olson, seated at the head of the table normally reserved for his host, made his pitch.
    Basically, there were two ways to go, Olson said. One path involved challenging the constitutionality of the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA, as it was known, created real financial hardships for gay and lesbian couples that had legally married in states like Massachusetts by denying them more than eleven hundred federal benefits. They were not entitled to the