By the time the documentary THE CASE AGAIN 8 was released, we had all followed the State of California after Proposition 8 was unveiled with great fervour. It was both infuriating and intriguing to watch for those of us on the outside, and it had been covered heavily in the press all around the world. With that in mind, how effective would the aforementioned documentary actually be – given that we knew all the details of the tale well in advance?
Bloody compelling to put it mildly, which is a testament to the amazing storytelling skills of its talented directors, Ben Cotner and Ryan White
For those of you who may have been living under a rock – or on a news fast at the time to give you the benefit of the doubt - after the California Supreme Court ruled in May 2008 that same-sex couples could marry, a proposition was put to voters to amend the state constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. After that proposition – known as Prop 8 - was passed a passionate, well-informed group decided to challenge the constitutionality of the amendment. This documentary follows the efforts of the plaintiffs and lawyers over four years as the case winds its way through the courts, and it is fascinating stuff even if on screen legal battles aren’t your thing.
By the time the documentary THE CASE AGAIN 8 was released, we had all followed the State of California after Proposition 8 was unveiled with great fervour. It was both infuriating and intriguing to watch for those of us on the outside, and it had been covered heavily in the press all around the world. With that in mind, how effective would the aforementioned documentary actually be – given that we knew all the details of the tale well in advance?
Bloody compelling to put it mildly, which is a testament to the amazing storytelling skills of its talented directors, Ben Cotner and Ryan White
For those of you who may have been living under a rock – or on a news fast at the time to give you the benefit of the doubt - after the California Supreme Court ruled in May 2008 that same-sex couples could marry, a proposition was put to voters to amend the state constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. After that proposition – known as Prop 8 - was passed a passionate, well-informed group decided to challenge the constitutionality of the amendment. This documentary follows the efforts of the plaintiffs and lawyers over four years as the case winds its way through the courts, and it is fascinating stuff even if on screen legal battles aren’t your thing.
The film begins a few months later in November 2008, when California incredibly passed Proposition 8, revoking the marriage rights of same-sex couples after six months of legalised unions had been happily occurring throughout the state. The American Foundation for Equal Rights, which organized the controversial lawsuit against the state, started the search for two California couples to serve as plaintiffs. Wholesome relatability (“people who were just like everybody else”) was a key requirement from the get go. This meant affable and most importantly white, a factor that has irked activists over time but seemed to me a sensible decision at the time given the hate mongering so rampant in the United States.
After a state-wide search the American Foundation for Equal Rights settled on Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, a lesbian couple from Berkeley with four sons; and Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo from Burbank, who saw the domestic partnership route as akin to acceptance of second-class citizenship. Much tugging of the heartstrings in the movie is when witnessing these close, loving families’ interactions – their genuine displays of nerves, frustration and courage, their moments of overwhelming emotion and despair.
Having said that, although the documentary had the capacity – and the subject matter – for many an emotional display and the aforementioned heartstring pulling, the film strives to be as even-handed as possible and I respect the co-directors greatly for that. Cameras focus just long enough to register the proliferation of anti-gay protesters; and anonymous phone calls spewing hate rhetoric are heard but not overly dwelt upon. But the directors are careful not to milk the ugliness surrounding the case for melodrama.
"This to me was a defining civil rights issue," AFER’s attorney David Boies last year told The Wall Street Journal about taking on the legal battle to strike down Proposition 8. "A wide variety of rules and regulations…were generated from the idea that somehow gays and lesbians were different in a defective or inferior way. By going for marriage equality, you struck at the heart of that bias." This sums up perfectly the methodical approach that Boies and his co-counsel Ted Olsen used highly effectively in their journey from California all the way to the Supreme Court, and one that still needs to play out elsewhere in the US. THE CASE AGAIN 8 also serves as a reminder that 33 U.S. states continue to deny gay men and women something now widely recognised as an inalienable right.