Forcing the Spring: Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality (61 page)

Chad, reading it out loud
:
Author interview with Chad Griffin, December 3, 2012.

Chad had made something of a study
:
Author interview with Chad Griffin, August 6, 2010.

CHAPTER 20: THE SCIENCE OF SEXUALITY

“Gotta give Nielson credit”
:
Author interview with Ethan Dettmer, the Gibson Dunn attorney who handled Dr. Herek’s direct exam, January 22, 2010.

To stay awake at the counsel’s table
:
Author interview with Ted Boutrous, January 22, 2010.

But Cooper’s point was more nuanced
:
Author interviews with Chuck Cooper, May 8, 2013, and June 1, 2013.

Sandy was just grateful
:
Author interviews with Sandy Stier and Kris Perry, December 5, 2010.

But Posner’s writings
:
Richard Posner, “Gay Marriage—Posner’s Response to Comments,”
The Becker-Posner Blog,
July 24 2005, http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2005/07/gay-marriage--posners-response-to-comments.html.

It is, “if not genetic, certainly innate”
:
Author interview with Richard Posner, September 30, 2013.

Posner had also rejected
:
Richard Posner, “The Economics of Gay Marriage—Posner,”
The
Becker-Posner Blog,
August 10, 2008, http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2008/08/the-economics-of-gay-marriage--posner.html.

Though Stewart knew the judge meant well
:
Author interview with Terry Stewart, December 1, 2010.

CHAPTER 21: THE PLAINTIFFS REST

Incendiary political messaging
:
Author interview with Ted Uno, January 24, 2010.

Other excerpts featured prominent
:
Plaintiffs’ Exhibit No. PX2554,
Perry v. Schwarzenegger,
704 F.Supp.2d 921 (N.D. Cal. 2010) (No. C 09-2292 VRW).

In a confidential memo
:
National Organization for Marriage and American Principles in
Action v.
Walter F. McKee, et al.,
NOM Deposition Exhibit 12: “National Strategy for Winning the Marriage Battle dated December 15, 2009,” United States District Court for the District of Maine, unsealed March 26, 2012, http://www.scribd.com/doc/86834855/20100716-Doc-128b-NOM-Depo-Exhibit-2-NOM-Depo-Exhibit-12-Nat-l-Strategy-for-Winning-12-15-09.

“All it took when we asked someone”
:
Plaintiffs’ Exhibit No. PX0390,
Perry v. Schwarzenegger.

“We bet the campaign on education”
:
Jesse McKinley and Kirk Johnson, “Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage,”
New York Times,
November 14, 2008.

CHAPTER 22: COOPER’S TURN

First, he did not want to take a position
:
Author interview with Chuck Cooper, June 1, 2013.

“Whatever good we could get”
:
Ibid.

Walker, though, was understandably reluctant
:
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993).

One measure of political powerlessness
:
City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center,
473 U.S. 432, 445 (1985).

The law, which provided for additional federal penalties
:
James Brooke, “Witnesses Trace Brutal Killing of Gay Student,”
New York Times,
November 21, 1998.

Boies once told Terry Stewart
:
Author interview with Terry Stewart, undated.

A willingness to deviate
:
Author interview with David Boies, January 25, 2010.

Finally, Miller handed the marked-up report
:
Plaintiffs Exhibit No. PX0794A,
Perry v. Schwarzenegger,
704 F.Supp.2d 921 (N.D. Cal. 2010) (No. C 09-2292 VRW), https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292/evidence/PX0794A.pdf.

Even Cooper had to admit
:
Author interview with Chuck Cooper, June 1, 2013.

“You make me sick”
:
Author interview with Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, December 5, 2010.

One day while they were in court
:
Author interview with Elliott Perry, August 25, 2012.

What was not okay with Spencer
:
Author interview with Spencer and Elliott Perry, August 25, 2012.

Kris called the Berkeley police
:
Author interview with Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, December 5, 2010.

Kris had tried to adopt
:
Author interview with Kris Perry, August 24, 2013.

CHAPTER 23: “A HIGH OL’ TIME OF IT”

“You know what I enjoyed?”
:
Author interview with David Blankenhorn, October 4, 2012.

“Boies made a big thing”
:
Ibid.

the “issue just hunts you down”
:
Ibid.

“I wasn’t going to be bullied”
:
Ibid.

“So, Exhibit A was Barack Obama”
:
Author interview with Chuck Cooper, June 1, 2013.

“The impression he conveyed”
:
Author interview with David Blankenhorn, October 4, 2012.

“Olson and Boies want to make”
:
Author interview with David Blankenhorn, November 26, 2012.

“You’re a helluva good witness”
:
Author interview with David Blankenhorn, October 4, 2012.

Years later, Cooper had no regrets
:
Author interview with Chuck Cooper, June 1, 2013.

“I guess I’ll see you later”
:
Author interview with Kristina Schake, February 10, 2010.

CHAPTER 24: VICTORY

Remember, she recalled telling her friend
:
Author interview with Kristina Schake, June 15, 2010.

And in the nation’s capital
:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/09/AR2010020903739.html.

On the legal front, a new study
:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2010/06/07/peds.2009-3153.abstract?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Bos&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT.

Celebrities have huge online followings
:
Author interview with Jeremy Braud, AFER social media consultant, June 22, 2010.

“Her position is her position”
:
Author interview with Mike Murphy, December 11, 2013.

In San Francisco, David Boies and Ted Boutrous
:
Author interview with Lady Olson, August 4, 2010.

“We did that three or four times”
:
Author interview with Judge Vaughn Walker, November 21, 2012.

“I yelled, I screamed”
:
Author interview with Enrique Monagas, August 5, 2010.

He started whooping
:
Author interview with Rob Reiner, August 6, 2010.

“It’s like a love letter”
:
Author interview with Gabriel Catone, August 7, 2010.

Cohen realized just how big
:
Author interview with Bruce Cohen, August 7, 2010.

“Oh my God—Prop 8 is unconstitutional”
:
Author interview with Chad Griffin, August 6, 2010.

CHAPTER 25: A TRUMP CARD, RELUCTANTLY PLAYED

“If the governor and the attorney general”
:
Author interview with Matt McGill, July 9, 2013.

Both were assured
:
Author interviews with David Boies, Chad Griffin, and Adam Umhoefer, May 2013.

Boutrous had responded
:
Author interview with Terry Stewart, December 1, 2010.

When that failed to produce the desired result
:
Author interview with David Boies, December 4, 2010.

But in what now appeared a serious misstep
:
Author interview with Chuck Cooper, June 1, 2013.

CHAPTER 27: WHEN A NIGHTINGALE SINGS

“I didn’t think I had earned that right”
:
Author interview with Ken Mehlman, October 22, 2013.

“I call Ted the nightingale”
:
Author interview with Ken Mehlman, November 17, 2010.

“Anyone who can get George Bush elected”
:
Author interview with Chad Griffin, December 3, 2010.

“Ken’s all in on everything he does”
:
Author interview with Mark Wallace, October 22, 2013.

“Coming out is hard”
:
Author interview with Kristina Schake, October 22, 2013.

“Ken spent a lot of time talking to them”
:
Author interview with Jim Messina, October 7, 2013.

“Over a million dollars”
:
Author interview with Bill Smith, August 12, 2013.

Mehlman also arranged a confidential meeting
:
Author interview with Ken Mehlman, October 19, 2011.

“You get to the point where”
:
Kenneth Lovett, “Gay Marriage Is Just One Vote Shy of Becoming Law in New York Despite Archbishop Dolan’s Objections,”
New York Daily News
, June 15, 2011.

“The vote is going to happen tonight”
:
Author interview with Ken Mehlman, October 19, 2011.

CHAPTER 28: SOME “GRIST FOR JUSTICE KENNEDY”

Cooper had been under pressure
:
Author interview with Chuck Cooper, January 18, 2012.

Living with the extended uncertainty
:
Author interview with Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami, December 8, 2011.

Judge Reinhardt, he would later say
:
Author interview with Enrique Monagas, June 4, 2012.

Terry Stewart, listening
:
Author interview with Terry Stewart, February 12, 2012.

CHAPTER 29:
8

“They turned that trial”
:
Author interview with Mary Bonauto, November 11, 2012.

“No way,” he’d exclaimed
:
Author interview with Kristina Schake, July 2012.

After talking it over with Rosen
:
Author interview with Hilary Rosen, November 8, 2012.

But even his brother watched
Glee
:
Author interviews with Adam Umhoefer, December 2010 and June 13, 2011.

CHAPTER 30: OBAMA “COMES OUT”

“The sense I got from him”
:
Author interview with Chad Griffin, April 19, 2011.

Reporting back to the AFER team
:
Author interviews with Adam Umhoefer and Amanda Crumley.

But as Chad watched the hosts’ two children
:
Author interview with Chad Griffin, May 14, 2012.

Sitting in his West Wing office
:
Author interview with Vice President Joseph Biden, October 9, 2013.

Several months before his vice president
:
The descriptions of internal White House deliberations contained in this section are based on author interviews with a half dozen senior White House officials, some of whom asked for anonymity in order to speak candidly.

“For as long as I’ve known him”
:
Author interview with David Axelrod, August 9, 2013.

“The notion that politically this is going to kill you”
:
Author interviews with Ken Mehlman, September 21, 2011, and May 18, 2012.

A massive survey of five thousand Republican
:
This is a survey by TargetPoint Consulting, on behalf of Project RightSide, conducted in October 2011. http://www.projectrightside.com/contentimages/PRS_ShiftingElec_infographic_21.pdf.

Mehlman’s takeaway
:
Author interview with Ken Mehlman, undated.

But she found the legal arguments
:
Author interviews with Elizabeth Riel, communications consultant for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, and Lisa Grove, June 2012, and documents summarizing Grove’s analysis.

Inside the White House
:
Author interview with David Axelrod, August 8, 2013.

This is consistent with who you are
:
Jo Becker, “Valerie Jarrett Is the Other Power in the West Wing,”
New York Times,
September 12, 2012, A1.