Ed Whelan continues his analysis of the Prop 8 trial. Is this about Prop 8 or about Olson’s and Boies’ egos?
the decision by Ted Olson and David Boies and their Hollywood backers to file a lawsuit challenging Proposition 8 as a violation of the federal Constitution was highly controversial among many advocates of same-sex marriage. Acceptance of, or at least acquiescence to, that decision appears to have come as a result of deference to the reputed strategic savvy of superlitigators Olson and Boies. But the Supreme Court’s order barring broadcast of the anti-Proposition 8 trial calls into question that supposed savvy….As the New Yorker article puts it, Olson sees the anti-Prop 8 case “as a way to make history.” The fears of other advocates for same-sex marriage that (in the words of one law professor quoted in the article) “there’s more ego than analysis” in his decision to pursue the case are surely more intense than ever.
