Ted Olson: SCOTUS Has Passed The 'Point Of No Return' On Gay Marriage

Former solicitor general Theodore Olson, the Republican lawyer who argued Bush v. Gore and the challenge to California’s Proposition 8, says the Supreme Court through action and inaction this month passed “the point of no return” on same-sex marriage.

“I do not believe that the United States Supreme Court could rule that all of those laws prohibiting marriage are suddenly constitutional after all these individuals have gotten married and their rights have changed,” he said in an interview. “To have that snatched away, it seems to me, would be inhuman; it would be cruel; and it would be inconsistent with what the Supreme Court has said about these issues in the cases that it has rendered.”

This month, the high court let stand without explanation appeals court rulings permitting gay marriage in five states. In an interview with The New Yorker published last week, President Obama said he believes it is a constitutional right but endorsed the court’s incremental approach.

Olson disagrees with that, saying the Supreme Court should take a case and affirmatively endorse marriage as a constitutional right. “I think the thing he overlooks …(is) that there are people in 18 states of the United States that don’t have this fundamental right that he has just announced that he believes in.”

Ted Olson and Tony Perkins Face Off Over SCOTUS and Marriage Equality

AFER lawyer Ted Olson and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins exchanged sharp words on FOX News Sunday in a panel covering this week's Supreme Court reverberations on marriage equality.

Perkins, the leader of a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group, brought his usual "natural marriage" nonsense and related arguments which Olson too politely called a "canard".

Said Perkins: "You still have two circuits that have decisions coming up that look favorable toward natural marriage. I think the effect here is what you need to look at. I think the effect here is that the court did a back-alley type Roe V Wade judicial decision that let the lower courts do their evil bidding...The court has lit the fuse to a powder keg culturally that is going to have ramifications for years to come in this nation.”

Replied Olson: "We have a Constitution and a Bill Of Rights precisely because we want protections from majority rule. When the majority in a legislature or a popular vote take away rights of individuals that are protected by the Bill Of Rights, then we have an independent judiciary to rectify that situation. It's happened again and again and again throughout this country's history...There’s no heterosexual couple that is going to decide to get a divorce or not get married or not raise children just because another couple next to them is treated equally and with respect."

Watch it all go down:

AFER paid $6.4 million to Ted Olson and David Boies' Law Firms in Prop 8 Case

The Washington Blade is reporting that the American Foundation for Equal Rights paid more than $6.4 million to the two law firms that successfully argued against California’s Proposition 8.

2009-2013 tax filings indicate former Republican U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson’s law firm – Gibson, Dunn & Crtcher LLP – received nearly $6 million from AFER for “legal and ancillary legal expenses,” while David Boies’ law firm – Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP received $468,089.

The paper reports that these expenses include payments to expert witnesses who testified against Prop 8, travel and living expenses for lawyers who lived in San Francisco for a month during a three-week trial over which now retired U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker presided in 2010, and legal research costs.

“AFER’s case resulted in the return of marriage equality in California for a fraction of the cost of a ballot measure,” AFER Executive Director Adam Umhoefer told the Washington Blade on Tuesday.

Tax filings also indicate AFER raised $14,900,467 between April 23, 2009, and March 31, 2013, that Umhoefer told the Blade includes a “large amount” of contributions from Republican donors. He added his organization estimates the Prop 8 case also generated millions of dollars in earned media coverage for which it did not have to pay.

One such piece of media that's generating quite a bit of buzz is The Case Against 8, the film that goes behind the scenes of the high-profile trial. The film has won multiple awards from film festivals this year, including last week's SXSW in Austin.