American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER)
Not all of us were lucky enough to be able to physically be at the Supreme Court last month as the arguments for and against California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) were presented. The media certainly did its job of covering the events, though, and that went a long way in helping the rest of the world keep up with what was going on.
The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) is dedicated to advancing equal rights for all and is the sole sponsor of Hollingsworth v. Perry, perhaps better known as the challenge to Prop 8. The legal team for the case was put together by AFER and is led by Theodore Olson and David Boies, who are known for arguing against each other in the Bush v. Gore case. Now they have united to fight a non-partisan American case.
AFER, of course, was among those groups present in Washington, D.C. for the Proposition 8 and DOMA arguments. They took a camera crew along with them, and have since created a short video that goes a long way in summing up the whole experience.
The video features several of AFER’s founding members, the plaintiffs, members of the legal team, and AFER board members. Short snippets of interviews with some of the organization’s most visible and upstanding members, such as Ken Mehlman, Chad Griffith, and Bruce Cohen, are included.
Dustin Lance Black, an AFER Founding Board Member conveyed perhaps the most important message in the video: that all we do today not only improves our lives, but also the lives of the generations to come—and that’s why there is so much work still to be done.
“We’re not done yet in this movement for LGBT equality,” he said in the video’s closing. “So, next is get back to work! And keep fighting to make sure the next generation’s lives are better than ours. I think that’s our job as Americans.”
To find out more, be sure to read our full profiles on Republican LGBT activist Ken Mehlman and HRC head Chad Griffin.