The Huffington Post

newyorker:

Learning from Gay Marriage

But the gay-rights movement has something to teach its colleagues on the left. In the heyday of the civil-rights era, when the Warren Court was a friend to liberals everywhere, the cause of equal legal rights for gay people scarcely even existed. Gay rights started from scratch at a time when the courts were, as a rule, implacably hostile to the cause of expanding definitions of civil rights. The degree of its triumph is extraordinary. Ten years ago, same-sex marriage did not exist in the United States; soon, assuming the California decision holds and a bill now pending in Washington’s state legislature passes, close to a quarter of the American people will live in a state that permits same-sex marriage. Compared to the fight for racial equality, that is change at the speed of lightning.

To some extent, Boies and Olson got lucky; they drew sympathetic judges at both the trial and appellate level. Their case could still fall apart in the course of further appeals. But today they look like they took a chance and seized the moment—which is an important lesson in itself.

- In today’s Daily Comment, Jeffrey Toobin writes about yesterday’s Proposition 8 ruling: http://nyr.kr/zkvadJ