Dustin Lance Black's New Play "8" Propagates Galactic Marriage Equality

By Anumita Mukherjee

"'8' started as an idea to help raise funds for the court case, this case has a long way to go, it has to all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court so that the ruling of Judge Walker applies to everyone in every state," said Academy Award–winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk) at the world premiere of his new play "8".

Morgan Freeman (David Boies), Matt Bomer (Jeff Zarillo), Ellen Barkin (Sandy Stier), Bob Balaban (Chief Judge Vaughn Walker), Christine Lahti (Kris Perry), Cheyenne Jackson (Paul Katami), Larry Kramer (Evan Wolfson), Rory O'Malley (Ryan Kendall), Rob Reiner (David Blankenhorn), John Lithgow (Theodore B. Olson) were just some of the celebrities that starred in this one night only staged reading at Eugene O'Neill Theatre on September 19, 2011.

Black's play "8" is composed out of transcripts from the closing arguments of 2010 Proposition 8 trial in San Francisco. It is based on Federal District Court's trial of Perry v. Schwarzenegger –the case filed by American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) to overturn California's Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that reversed the state Supreme Court's ruling that granted same–sex couples the right to marry.

In May 2008, California Supreme Court had ruled that the right to marry extended to all individuals, regardless of sexual orientation. However, in November of 2008, the voters of California retaliated to that decision...