Noted New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, opines on the unique legal team of former Solicitor General Ted Olson and prominent Democratic attorney David Boies, as they tackle the most significant legal challenge to restrictions on same-sex marriage:

In 2000, Olson and Boies sparred with each other in Washington over which candidate would marry the country. Now they have joined forces here to spar with Prop 8 defenders over who can marry.

“Ted Olson and David Boies, so what are they up to?” Olson laughed, summarizing the confusion and conspiracy theories that their union inspired.

As the sun set on the Bay Bridge behind him and the curtain dropped on the first week of the dramatic trial to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, Olson reviewed the case: “We’re going to explain why allowing same-sex couples to have that same right that the rest of us have is not going to hurt heterosexual marriages. It has no point at all except some people don’t want to recognize gays and lesbians as normal, as human beings.”

Boies, wearing a flag pin on his lapel, said that the state of California is engaged in “gay bashing.” He spoke intensely about the gay and lesbian plaintiffs, who offered poignant testimony about their loving relationships and about wanting to be liked and accepted: “These people are people you would want your child to grow up and marry. You can be a child molester and get married. You can be a wife beater and get married. You can be a child-support scofflaw and get married. The importance of that emotional relationship is so vital to the pursuit of happiness that even prison felons, who aren’t really procreating, have a right to get married.”

…

I asked the lawyers if they were disappointed that the president who had once raised such hope in the gay community now seemed behind the curve.

“Damned right,” Boies snapped. “I hope my Democratic president will catch up to my conservative Republican co-counsel.”

Read the rest of Dowd’s column in the New York Times. To learn more about Olson and Boies’s case, visit the American Foundation for Equal Rights.