By Marcia Coyle, The National Law Journal

As the aftermath of such U.S. Supreme Court rulings as the 1954 school desegregation and 2008 Second Amendment cases show, landmark decisions rarely mark the end of litigation. Lawyers like Mary Bonauto, who scored success for same-sex couples in Obergefell v. Hodges, doggedly pursue enforcement in lower courts of the principles underlying their victories.

Advocacy on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community has been Bonauto’s life work since 1990, when she signed on as a civil rights lawyer at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders in Boston. In 2003, she won the first state supreme court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage based on the concepts of equality and personal liberty under the Massachusetts Constitution.

Bonauto’s comments in an interview in The Boston Globe back then would echo eerily nearly a decade later in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell. “As time goes on, what equality means, and even the people who deserve equality, those are evolving concepts,” she told that newspaper.

Kennedy in turn wrote: “Indeed, changed understandings of marriage are characteristic of a nation where new dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations, often through perspectives that begin in pleas or protests and then are considered in the political sphere and the judicial process.”

While her plane was delayed in Philadelphia while on her way home to Maine, Bonauto spoke with the NLJ about her first-time experience in the Supreme Court and her post-marriage-equality plans.

NLJ: How would you describe your experience arguing in the Supreme Court?

Bonauto: The closest analogy I can think of is that it was like I came into the middle of an intense conversation among a lot of people and I wasn’t clear who had said what to whom beforehand.

I also had the very definite sense they knew the answers to the questions they asked. It raises the issue of whether oral argument is really more of a chance for the justices to speak to each other through the advocates. In fairness to them, they had heard this issue in 2013, and they couldn’t have had much more paper in front of them than they had two years ago.

After the arguments, I found myself defending the process to a lot of nonlawyer families that I know. There were so many interruptions with questions — something I teach my children not to do — but I explained it was just part of the give-and-take of oral arguments.

It was a thrill to be there. It represented decades of work, and we finally were before the final arbiter in our federal system.

NLJ: Did the experience differ from your experiences arguing in state and federal appellate courts?

Bonauto: First, there’s just the sheer number of them — nine justices. In terms of my preparation, one of the things I had to train myself out of was talking about legal doctrine. They don’t talk about case law very much — a definite contrast. A lot of questions to me were nonlegal — and that was the reaction of a lot of people, not just lawyers. There were questions about the [homosexual] practices in ancient Greece, which seemed so extraordinarily far afield from the 14th Amendment.

So I would say the high generality of a lot of the questions was a major difference. But you do read their cases and the obvious disputes that were relevant here — for example, how to interpret the due-process clause. I knew where I landed on that and where we wanted the court to go. I conveyed plenty of content that I wanted to get across.

NLJ: Were there any moments in your argument or your opponent’s argument that stand out in particular?

Bonauto: I don’t know a single lawyer who doesn’t have an expectation of an argument going in and afterward how it was different from what was expected. One moment came during my opponent’s argument and a question about adoption by gays and lesbians. [John Bursch] turned and looked in our direction and said Michigan loves adoption and these petitioners are great parents, no doubt about it. I had a very strong reaction to that because his arguments were so counterproductive to that.

NLJ: If you had to give advice to another first-timer appearing before the high court, what would you say?

Bonauto: There were so many people supporting me. I had a fairly compressed schedule for preparing, so having that support was very helpful.

I did have as many [moot courts] as I could. As a general matter, they are very helpful, because you press yourself as hard as you can. It was also extremely helpful to have had a conservative member on the moot court. Also, get a lot of input from Supreme Court practitioners.

Demonstrators celebrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court moments after the court announced its opinion in the case Obergefell v Hodges, making same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. June 26, 2015.

NLJ: You had been attending decision days at the high court throughout June and so were in the courtroom on the day Obergefell was announced. Did you realize immediately or somewhat later what the ruling was during Kennedy’s summary from the bench?

Bonauto: Virtually immediately. People around me were clutching hands and there wasn’t a lot of breathing. But he said something about millennia and then something about change in almost his second sentence, and I knew then. Of course, I felt a lot better when I heard explicit confirmation.

NLJ: The chief justice read a summary of his dissent from the bench for the first time. The tone and wording surprised some people because, some felt, it was unusually bitter. What did you think as you listened to it?

Bonauto: I was still listening intensely. His comparison of the decision to Lochner — which is quite an accusation in the legal regime — his calling the majority ‘five lawyers’ instead of justices and his saying the Constitution had nothing to do with the outcome — it was bitter for him and also bitter for us. This was a case about people coming before the court asking to be treated by the government as equal. The idea the Constitution doesn’t speak to that is disappointing. Thankfully, it was the minority position.

NLJ: Were you disappointed that the majority decision did not address a standard of review for discrimination based on sexual orientation?

Bonauto: In my ideal world, that would have been there. In the world I live in, with the court and everything else, this is a terrific opinion. It has so much in it — the liberty and equal protection that gay people share in.

I think it’s actually laced with equal-protection and anti-subordination principles that will address a lot of discrimination going forward.

When I actually got to read the opinion, all four of the heightened-scrutiny factors are actually addressed. When people dispute the standard of review, I don’t think anyone with an ounce of legal training will think rational basis would apply. I think everyone was conscious there will be disputes going forward, and [the justices] want to resolve those disputes another day.

NLJ: What did you do the day after the decision?

Bonauto: I have been to no public celebrations at all. I went down to Florida to see my parents and give them a hug. They got me a cake that said, “You nailed the big one.”

NLJ: So what is the next chapter for you and Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders?

Bonauto: I’m looking at some long-range projects about how to take a victory like this and translate it into more family acceptance, so parents have an easier time accepting their LGBT kids. A lot of LGBT kids are on the streets because of lack of family acceptance and views in schools. It will be a priority.

I’m going to be addressing discrimination against some LGBT elders. There are a lot of poor gay people and people of color in extraordinary circumstances — a whole variety of issues. I’m hoping we can keep the partnerships with others that we formed in the marriage fight to deal with these and other issues.

IMAGE: ADVOCATE: “This was a case about people coming before the court asking to be treated by the ­government as equal,” Mary Bonauto of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders said. Diego M. Radzinschi

For more on this story go to: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202732509022/QA-Mary-Bonauto-Reflects-on-High-Courts-GayMarriage-Ruling#ixzz3gRlY5buZ