How Rob Reiner’s Gamble on Prop 8 Changed History for Gay Marriage

Jason Sargent Tuesday, December 16, 2025

- - How Rob Reiner’s Gamble on Prop 8 Changed History for Gay Marriage

Miu von FurstenbergDecember 16, 2025 at 9:00 AM

Following the horrific murders of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner, the entertainment and political worlds are reflecting on a legacy that transcends film. While celebrated for directing classics like When Harry Met Sally and The Princess Bride, Reiner’s most enduring impact on American society may well be his pivotal role in the fight to overturn California’s Proposition 8, a battle that paved the way for nationwide marriage equality.

Reiner was far more than a celebrity donor; he was a strategic architect in the modern gay rights movement. In 2008, after California voters passed Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage, Reiner co-founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER). His goal was audacious: to challenge the ban directly in federal court. Breaking with the cautious strategy of many established LGBT advocacy groups at the time, Reiner believed the issue needed to be framed not just as a state legislative matter, but as a fundamental constitutional question.

Rob Reiber and Michele Singer Reiner at the 2018 White House Correspondents Association Annual Dinner on April 28, 2018. Photo Credit: Ron Sachs/CNP/startraksphoto.com

To execute this vision, Reiner helped recruit a legal “dream team” that bridged the partisan divide. He brought together Ted Olson, a conservative solicitor general under George W. Bush, and David Boies, the liberal attorney who faced Olson in Bush v. Gore. This bipartisan approach was calculated to show that marriage equality was a conservative value of individual liberty as much as a liberal one.

Reiner frequently articulated his motivation by drawing parallels to historic civil rights struggles. In 2011, while discussing the legal challenge, he stated, “We don’t believe in separate but equal in any other legal position except this. We feel that this is the last piece of the civil rights puzzle being put into place.”

Rob Reiner waits for a taxi in Midtown on September 6, 2012. Photo Credit: Ken Katz/startraksphoto.com

The resulting case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger (later Hollingsworth v. Perry), resulted in a historic 2010 trial where Proposition 8 was ruled unconstitutional. Reiner’s instincts were vindicated when the U.S. Supreme Court let the ruling stand in 2013, effectively restoring gay marriage in California and setting the legal groundwork for the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriage across the nation.

Reflecting on the movement’s rapid progress in a 2015 op-ed for Variety, Reiner wrote, “When I started speaking out about this, I said, ‘Forty years from now, we’ll look back on this the same way we do on women having the right to vote or on African-Americans having civil rights.’… Each one of these steps makes us more one country, and reminds us we are all part of the family of man.”

Tom Cruise and Rob Reiner on the set of A Few Good Men on January 1, 1992. Photo Credit: Moviestore Collection/Cover Images

Political leaders have been quick to credit Reiner’s specific contributions. California Governor Gavin Newsom told The Los Angeles Times that Reiner was a “passionate advocate… fighting for marriage equality” who “made California a better place through his good works.” Similarly, former President Barack Obama highlighted Reiner’s “lifelong commitment to putting [his] belief into action.”

Reiner’s activism extended beyond the courtroom. He utilized his storytelling prowess to humanize the issue, participating in readings of the play 8, which used trial transcripts to show the public the discriminatory arguments used by Prop 8 proponents. Through AFER, he helped shift the court of public opinion, arguing that denying marriage rights was an exclusion that had no place in American democracy.

Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner at Broadway Opening Night Arrivals for ‘Misery’ starring Bruce Willis and Laurie Metcalf, at the Broadhurst Theatre on November 15, 2015. Photo Credit: Adam Nemser/startraksphoto.com

As the nation mourns a cultural icon, legal experts and activists alike acknowledge that the freedom to marry for millions of Americans is part of the Reiner legacy—a production he directed with the same passion he brought to the screen.

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