'The Case Against 8' Underscores Why Marriage Equality Is Well Worth the Struggle — elle.com

The Case Against 8, the HBO documentary chronicling the nearly five-year judicial appeal of Proposition 8 (California’s 2008 ballot measure banning same-sex marriage), is, above all else, a story of love and hope. It may mask itself at times as a political thriller, but that’s okay. After all, the historic civil rights showdown seethed with drama: the uphill battle waged by the improbable duo of David Boies and right-winger Ted Olson—the über-attorneys who squared off in the 2000 Bush v. Gore recount case—on behalf of marriage equality; the case’s slow but steady path through state and federal courts; and, finally, the victory in the Supreme Court, where Prop 8 was struck down. But the heart of the film is really the case’s plaintiffs, Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami, and Kris Perry and Sandy Stier—two couples who sacrificed years of their lives as the faces of a fight for civil liberties for a marginalized community. “We’ve all seen women vilified for rights,” Stier says. “As gay women, we felt even greater vulnerability. Prop 8 was harming Californians, including us and our kids. Someone needed to take that on.”

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