In the NYT, Ed Meese strikes back hard against the idea there’s anything conservative about using the federal courts to overturn the free and fair election that produced Prop 8.
Dr. Jennifer Roeback Morse writes:
I happened to know about this because I received a subpoena from Boies’ office. I was a consultant to the Prop 8 campaign. I have not the slightest concern that anyone will find any evidence of hatred hidden in my correspondence. My views are all over the internet. It is the pettiness of Olsen and Boies I find revolting. . . . No court in the land should have the authority to look over the shoulders of campaign managers and voters to see if their motives pass some ideological litmus test.
The motives of the seven million Californians who voted Yes on 8 are irrelevant. The election was about adding 14 words to the California Constitution. The entire state of California knew perfectly well what those words were. The point of the campaign was to discuss the likely impact of those words. Olsen and Boies don’t like what the voters decided. Sorry. Self-government is about abiding by the results of lawful elections, whether you like the outcome or not.
(Full disclosure, the Ruth Institute is affiliated with NOM, which I run).
Even Margaret Talbot in The New Yorker calls it “a peculiar situation: while gay-rights activists advocate judicial restraint, solicitude for the popular will, and a gradual, state-centric approach, Ted Olson argues, in the urgent language of civil rights, for a sweeping, federal solution on their behalf.”