To commemorate the forty-fourth anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, David Boies and Ted Olson, the lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the federal Prop. 8 trial, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, made a video for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the sponsor of the Prop. 8 lawsuit. In it Olson says, “Forty-four years ago, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man; fundamental to our very existence and survival. And that under our constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the state . . .” Boies says, “The freedom to marry is a constitutional right as recognized in Loving v. Virginia . . . . All committed and loving Americans should be able to marry the person they love without government interference.”

On June 12, 2007, a year before her death, Mildred Loving, a plaintiff in that landmark case, wrote this: “Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the ‘wrong kind of person’ for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights. I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”

Earlier this year, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled California’s Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional, stating that it “serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”

The Prop. 8 story exemplifies the ongoing struggle for equality, and has all the makings of an excellent drama: It’s been going on for years, and it involves California (the land of tropical weather and Hollywood), the giving and the taking away of justice, the government, the courts, the seekers of equality and those who would deny it, the state, the church, and thousands of real people.

It’s such a great drama, in fact, that Dustin Lance Black–who won an Oscar for writing Milk, LGBT hero Harvey Milk’s story–has written one. It’s called, appropriately, 8, and it’s based on the transcripts of the 2008 federal trial that dealt with the legality of Proposition 8. 8 brings to life the players in that San Francisco courtroom: Ted Olson and David Boies, the two same-sex couples who brought the suit, the now-famous Judge Vaughn Walker, the famously flappable lead attorney for the defense, Charles Cooper, and a cast of other colorful characters—including the staunch anti-equality mover and shaker behind the National Organization for Marriage, Maggie Gallagher.

8 presents such a compelling case for marriage equality that AFER and another dynamic organization, Broadway Impact, have joined forces to make the rights available to professional, university, and community theaters for one-night-only staged readings of the play. To date, after splashy, star-studded debuts of the play on Broadway and in Los Angeles, more than a hundred additional performances have been held or are scheduled, in this nationwide series.

This marriage of art and social justice (pun intended) has appealed to theater and equality advocates from coast to coast, including the Homecoming Players (the theater I run with my artistic partner, actor/playwright Arthur Bicknell), which will be performing 8 in “gorges” Ithaca, New York, on August 10.

The honored guests at the Homecoming Players’ production will be army Captain Steve Hill and his husband, Josh Snyder. Like the Lovings, the Snyder-Hills were not permitted to marry in their home state. They traveled from Ohio to Washington, DC, to obtain a legal marriage; and still, as a same-sex couple, they are deprived of scores of benefits afforded to opposite-sex couples in the military, and under federal law (thanks to the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA]).

Last fall when Steve submitted a question about DADT to Rick Santorum at the GOP presidential debate, he was famously booed. Those boos have catapulted Steve and Josh to prominence as marriage equality activists. The couple recently made this video for Freedom to Marry, and have started an organization to promote national marriage equality, MarriageEvolved.com. (They’ve also made a very appealing pitch video for our production of 8.)

There’s a reason AFER wanted Olson and Boies to mark the anniversary of the landmark Loving decision. The fight over Prop. 8 is the sorry legacy of the Loving v. Virginia battle. In 1967, the law discriminated against interracial couples. Today the law enshrines discrimination against same-sex couples. No doubt in the future, when universal marriage equality is a reality, those who need to pump themselves up at the expense of someone else will find new excuses for bigotry and oppression: perhaps no same-eye-color marriages; no interstate marriages; no civil marriages at all, only church-blessed unions: You get the picture.

The Lovings could not have predicted the far-reaching impact of the decision that changed their lives and the trajectory of the civil rights movement of the sixties. Neither can we predict what the world will be for same-sex couples forty-plus years from now. One thing we do know, though, is that the story of Prop. 8 continues, as the battle now heads for the ultimate test, in the Supreme Court of the United States. Our hope is that 8 the play will live on in perpetuity, long after the discrimination codified by Proposition 8 has been relegated to the dustbin of history.

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