Theodore Olson, conservative lawyer who backed marriage equality, dies at 84

A longtime Republican who helped George W. Bush secure the presidency, he shocked many when he worked to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage.


Theodore Olson makes his way through the crowd after a hearing at the Supreme Court in 2000. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

By Andrew Wolfson
Updated November 13, 2024 at 9:19 a.m. EST | Published November 13, 2024 at 8:46 a.m. EST

Theodore B. Olson, a conservative constitutional lawyer who argued the 2000 Florida vote-recount case that helped George W. Bush secure the presidency and, to much surprise, later joined forces with a liberal opponent from the election lawsuit in a successful effort to overturn California’s 2008 ban on same-sex marriage, died Nov. 13 at a hospital in Falls Church, Virginia. He was 84. ... The death was announced by the law firm Gibson Dunn, where Mr. Olson was a partner. No cause was noted.

A legal luminary of the right, Mr. Olson spent most of his six-decade career as an appellate lawyer in private practice. He had two high-level government appointments — serving as assistant attorney general under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1984 and solicitor general of the United States under Bush from 2001 to 2004. He was widely regarded as one of the top practitioners of his generation. ... Mr. Olson appeared more than 60 times before the U.S. Supreme Court. He opposed race-based set-asides in federal contracting and college admissions, affirmed the freedom of the press and defended the young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers.” What many of his arguments had in common was that they aligned with his libertarian brand of conservatism.

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Mr. Olson, right, and David Boies, meet with the media outside the Supreme Court in 2013, after the court heard arguments on California's voter approved ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

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Overturning same-sex marriage ban

Mr. Olson said he considered his greatest legal legacy to be his role in invalidating California’s Proposition 8, a referendum banning same-sex marriage that had passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote after the state’s Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. ... He had come to the case in a most unlikely way, through Rob Reiner, the film director and liberal activist who was among those intent on reversing the recently approved proposition.

Reiner had a decidedly low opinion of Mr. Olson, stemming from what he regarded as Bush’s ill-gotten 2000 election win. But Mr. Olson told Reiner that he found Prop 8 “wrong, morally and legally,” and Reiner was convinced that the lawyer could appeal to conservatives. ... “It is a conservative value to respect the relationship that people seek to have with one another, a stable, committed relationship that provides a backbone for our community, for our economy,” Mr. Olson later told the Los Angeles Times. “I think conservatives should value that.” ... Mr. Olson endured taunts from former supporters on the hard right, some of whom unleashed homophobic vitriol. Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh denounced him on the radio. Others declined invitations to dine at his home near the Potomac River.

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Cleisthenes 5 minutes ago

His opening statement in the prop 8 case .. go listen to it. Classic Olson .. he was the guy you called when you wanted to win.

If you had told me 30+ years ago as a single gay man that I would be married with two kids today ... impossible.

Thanks Ted