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ANNOUNCER: This week on Bill Moyers Journal...
BILL MOYERS: Two celebrated legal adversaries shake hands and come out fighting...
in defense of same-sex marriage.
TED OLSON: The right to marry is an individual right. It's not the state's right.
It's not a governmental right. It's an individual right.
DAVID BOIES: If you recognize them as full citizens, the Constitution guarantees
that they have equal protection laws. They have the same rights as any heterosexual.
BILL MOYERS: Superstar lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies.
BILL MOYERS: The trial began in January but unless you were inside the courtroom in
San Francisco's federal district courthouse, there was no other way to watch the
proceedings, so two filmmakers in Los Angeles came up with an ingenious alternative:
using the trial transcripts and other reporting, plus a cast of professional actors,
they turned the case into a TV courtroom drama. Every day of the proceedings has been re-enacted
on their website, MarriageTrial.com.
AN ACTOR PORTRAYING MR. BOIES: Your honor, we call as our second witness, Mr. Paul Katami.
BILL MOYERS: Here in this excerpt, the actor portraying plaintiff Paul Katami tells
the court that he and Jeff Zarillo, his partner of nine years, just want to enjoy
the same status as other married people.
AN ACTOR PORTRAYING PAUL KATAMI: I shouldn't have to feel ashamed. Being gay doesn't
make me any less American. It doesn't change my patriotism.
It doesn't change the fact that I pay taxes, and I own a home, and I want to start a family.
But, in that moment, being gay means I'm unequal. I'm less than. I am undesirable.
I have been relegated to a corner. I don't think of myself as someone who needs
to be put in a corner and told that, "You're different. It's not for you."
Well, it is for me.
BILL MOYERS: Kristin Perry has been with Sandra Stier for ten years. They're raising
four sons from previous relationships. In the recreation of the trial, the actress
playing Perry was questioned by counsel.
AN ACTOR PORTRAYING MR. OLSON: What does the institution of marriage mean
to you? I mean, why do you want that?
AN ACTRESS PORTRAYING KRISTIN PERRY: Well, I have never really let myself want
it until now. Growing up a lesbian, you don't let yourself want it,
because everybody tells you you're never going to have it.
So in some ways it's hard for me to grasp what it would even mean.
I do see other people who are married and I think that that's what it looks
like, that you are honored and respected by your family.
Your children know what your relationship is. And when you leave
your home and you go to work, or you go out in the world, people
know what your relationship means.
BILL MOYERS: Go to our site at PBS.org and we'll link you to MarriageTrial.com.
It's fascinating. Testimony is completed but the trial goes on. Final arguments
will take place in the coming weeks. Then the judge will make his ruling,
perhaps sometime this spring. Whichever side loses will no doubt
appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.
BILL MOYERS: With me now are the real-life attorneys for the plaintiffs in this
landmark case... [FADE]