Rob Reiner, gay marriage activist, ‘elated’ by Prop. 8 ruling

Actor-director and political activist Rob Reiner, who cofounded the group that led the court battle against Proposition 8, said he was “elated” when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that defenders of the same sex-marriage ban had no legal standing in court, clearing the way for gay marriage to resume in California.

Speaking in a phone interview from a Connecticut set Friday, Reiner discussed the future of same-sex marriage in the United States, saying his group --– American Foundation for Equal Rights -- would look for ways to continue its effort nationwide.

“To me, the concern at this point is how do we take these two landmark rulings on DOMA and Prop. 8 and fold that into ultimately a real try to find a way to use those two rulings and move ahead to allow marriage for gays and lesbians throughout the country,” Reiner said. “Right now we’ve got 13 states and D.C. and we have to find ways to make this available to everybody in America.”

Reiner said AFER would potentially look at bringing another gay marriage-related case to the courts that would address the constitutionality of the issue, in order to avoid a prolonged state-by-state fight.

“We’re going to talk about what the strategy is,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll do the smart thing.”

Though the legal fight over Proposition 8 took four years to resolve, Reiner said his group “felt confident right from the beginning,” because the California Supreme Court had ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in 2008. But, he said, the “whole process was tortuous in the fact that it did take so long.”

There were two parts to their effort, he said. The first was to overturn Proposition 8. The second was to educate people.

“In a weird way, it kind of helped us -- the fact that it took so long,” he said. “It allowed us the opportunity to educate people that their marriages weren’t being threatened, that society wasn’t being threatened, and they had gay friends and family members and colleagues in the workplace .… You saw public opinion start to dramatically shift.”

“We feel that we’ve turned the corner on where this country is on marriage quality,” he said. “But we still have to fight those legal battles to ensure that.”

Reiner described the “waves of excitement” he felt while watching Wednesday’s news on MSNBC, saying he grew particularly emotional when plaintiff Paul Katami spoke about finally being able to marry the person he loved.

“I just started to tear up,” Reiner said. “I thought, ‘Wow.’ Just the magnitude of what we were able to accomplish … it was just overwhelming. It was incredible.”

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kate.mather@latimes.com