AFER Files Prop 8 Brief

The good guys have begun filing their Supreme Court briefs. First out, appropriately, is the American Foundation for Equal Rights, who today filed their brief in the Proposition 8 case. Chris Geidner reports at Buzzfeed:

Nearly four years after filing the case, Ted Olson and David Boies told the Supreme Court Thursday that the Constitution "does not tolerate the permanent exclusion of gay men and lesbians from the most important relation in life" — marriage. As part of the challenge to California's Proposition 8 that the two lawyers have brought on behalf of two same-sex couples unable to marry in the state, Olson and Boies argue both broadly for a constitutional right to marry that should include same-sex couples and more narrowly that the vote in November 2008 to end same-sex couples' right to marry in California was unconstitutional.

The brief is 63 pages long. Hit the link and read their arguments.

UPDATE: AFER sends us an excerpt via press release.

“Because of their sexual orientation—a characteristic with which they were born and which they cannot change—Plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of gay men and lesbians in California and across the country are being excluded from one of life’s most precious relationships. They may not marry the person they love, the person with whom they wish to partner in building a family and with whom they wish to share their future and their most intimate and private dreams,” Plaintiffs’ attorneys, led by distinguished co-counsel Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, said in the brief. “Although opening to them participation in the unique and immensely valuable institution of marriage will not diminish the value or status of marriage for heterosexuals, withholding it causes infinite and permanent stigma, pain, and isolation. It denies gay men and lesbians their identity and their dignity; it labels their families as second-rate. That outcome cannot be squared with the principle of equality and the unalienable right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness that is the bedrock promise of America from the Declaration of Independence to the Fourteenth Amendment, and the dream of all Americans. This badge of inferiority, separateness, and inequality must be extinguished. When it is, America will be closer to fulfilling the aspirations of all its citizens.”