All language subtitles for Original.Sin.Sex.S01E02.Government.in.the.Bedroom.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-SPiRiT

♪ [MUSIC]

REPORTER: What do you
want the police to do?

MAN: We want them
off of our backs.

We want them to stop harassing
us, stop pushing us around.

NARRATOR: Every single one of
us has an unexpected guest

in the bedroom.

LOVING: I woke up and there was
the policeman standing beside

the bed.

DR. WESTHEIMER: The law has to
stay out of people's bedrooms.

CHARLES: People are interested
in regulating what other people

do because we wanna have a cause
or something to feel like

we're in control of things.

MORRIS: Well, I'm a hundred
percent against birth control

because it's immoral.

It's the same as prostitution.

SAVAGE: Everyone should back
the [bleep] out of the room

and leave it alone.

MCCARTHY: The fight to expose
those who will destroy

this nation will go on and on.

NARRATOR: But sometimes, the
government can be a useful

bedfellow.

CHO: It was a great
victory and it's something

that I still celebrate.

NARRATOR: No matter which
side of the debate you're on.

MAN: Abortion is murder.

NARRATOR: When the
government's in the bedroom,

nobody is getting any sleep.

POLICEMAN: Your
demonstration is over.

BAIRD: And I will fight
them to my last breath.

COHEN: You have to speak
up and you have to fight

for what you believe.

NARRATOR: In a push to
strengthen civilized behavior,

in 2016, the Chinese Government
bans internet videos

of women eating
bananas erotically.

♪ [MUSIC]

Putting the brakes on sexualized
bananas is a mild restriction

compared to China's most
notorious anti-sex regulation.

♪ [MUSIC]

DR. FENG: Women were forced to
undergo abortion, sterilization,

and when the families
try to resist the policy,

their houses were torn down.

NARRATOR: In the second
half of the 20th century,

China's communist leaders
became deeply concerned

about their nation's
exploding population.

DR. FENG: Everything that goes
wrong in China was because China

had too many people.

Population must be controlled
with the most extreme measure.

NARRATOR: In September 1980, the
Chinese Government announces

that from then on, and
with few exceptions,

couples are allowed to
have only one child.

DR. FENG: Women were required
to undergo monthly examinations.

In some villages, women's
menstrual cycles were posted

in public.

NARRATOR: Because of the
traditional Chinese preference

for a son, girl babies
were often aborted.

INTERPRETER: Within a few years,

the words for brother and
sister will disappear.

In my view, the single child
policy will lead to a very

selfish society.

DR. FENG: If you do not
observe the one child rule,

you could lose your job.

NARRATOR: For 35 years, China
strictly enforces the one child

policy.

Then in January 2016, China
finally repeals

the severe program.

By then, the damage
had been done.

Sex selective abortion resulted
in a Chinese population

with as many as 30 million
more men than women.

DR. FENG: I think one of
the main lessons learned

is the danger for the
government to go so far

into people's bedrooms.

NARRATOR: But it's a lesson
governments throughout history

and around the world
never seem to learn.

BERKOWITZ: The essence of power
is whether or not a government

can control someone's actions.

So for a government to
actually exert power,

the power has to extend
beyond the streets

and into the bedroom.

EISENBACH: Each civilization
tries to provide a code,

sometimes backed by the force
of God to keep people in line

sexually.

MAN: Venus.

[LIGHTNING]

GOODWIN: Laws about sex are
very rarely about sex itself.

HARTLEY: Most of them
are very punitive.

They're very anti-woman.

They're certainly anti-pleasure.

They're anti-science.

They're anti-logic.
They're anti-compassion.

They are just crazy.

NARRATOR: Crazy or not, sex laws
in the United States didn't get

on the books until
relatively recently.

EISENBACH: See, there's
this common myth that,

we're this Puritanical people
right from the very beginning.

That's not true.

You just had those Puritans
up there in New England.

The rest of the colonies
had a very liberal attitude

when it came to sexuality.

WEISS: We had a lot of sexual
activity in the streets.

Anything you did in the
streets was okay

in the 19th Century as long
as it didn't disturb the horses.

NARRATOR: In 1863, a very
religious 18-year-old farm boy

from Connecticut named Anthony
Comstock marched off to battle

in the civil war.

The experience would change
him and America forever.

EISENBACH: He's seeing
all his fellow soldiers,

carousing with prostitutes, and
this is very traumatic for him.

BERKOWITZ: It appears,
according to his writings,

that he was rather consumed
with sexual materials himself

and masturbated to a
furious degree.

NARRATOR: Repulse by the sinful
behavior of his fellow soldiers,

Comstock returns from war
with the mission of his own.

EISENBACH: After the war, he
then starts a one-man crusade

to crack down on vice, and
obscenity, and pornography.

BERKOWITZ: Anthony Comstock went
down to Washington and set up

what he called a
Chamber of Horrors.

WOMAN: Ahh!

EISENBACH: He presents
the U.S. Congress

with literally this
collection of sex toys,

ranging in size, from this spiky
little thimble to this 28-inch

mahogany dildo.

NARRATOR: Fueled by Comstock's
laser focused fervor,

congress passes what becomes
known as the Comstock Law,

America's first federal
restraint on sex.

Comstock himself is commissioned
as a US Postal Inspector,

with the power to open
anyone's mail and seizes

whatever he considers obscene.

BERKOWITZ: He sort of was
postmaster censor-in-chief

and that allowed the government
to monitor and track,

virtually, everything.

It was astonishing.

NARRATOR: Comstock confiscates
tons of nude photos,

erotic writing, sex toys,
and everything to do

with contraception.

COMELLA: His concern with
contraception, I think,

had everything to do with a
certain idea of keeping women

in their place.

He also went after
birth control advocates.

SANGER: Many people are
horrified at the idea

of birth control.

Well, to me, it is simply the
keynote of a new moral program.

♪ [MUSIC]

EISENBACH: Margaret Sanger
had been a nurse working

in the poor sections
of New York.

She had seen how life in the
slums was made infinitely

more difficult by
unwanted pregnancies.

BERKOWITZ: The way she saw it,
only by controlling pregnancies

can a poor woman exert some
kind of control over her life

and her economic well-being.

NARRATOR: Sanger rebels
against the status quo.

She goes toe to toe with
Comstock in a relentless battle

to give women access
to birth control.

BERKOWITZ: Everything Margaret
Sanger said and believed was,

to Comstock, the voice of Satan.

It's one of the great blood
feuds of American Law.

KLEIN: Margaret Sanger
essentially says,

it's okay to have sex
or pleasure or passion,

and this was such
an offensive idea.

NARRATOR: In 1915,
Comstock dies.

♪ [MUSIC]

A year after the death
of her arch nemesis,

Sanger opens a birth control
clinic in Brooklyn, New York,

the first in the United States.

Unlike its namesake, Comstock's
Law is alive and well,

and Sanger is arrested.

She refuses to back down from
her mission and is sentenced

to a month in prison.

♪ [MUSIC]

Sanger is not alone
in her crusade.

Across the pond, a
controversial English activist,

Marie Stopes writes
Wise Parenthood,

a sex manual detailing
methods of birth control.

Following Sanger's lead,
Stopes also opens a clinic.

ANNOUNCER: Marie Stopes
pioneered birth control,

believing that one of the
greatest freedoms women

could have will be freedom
from constant childbearing.

In 1921, opened her first
Mother's Clinic in London,

the centers helped to educate
mothers in how to bring up

healthy babies, and were
part of the gradual process

that liberated women from
the Victorian to boost

the surrounded subjects like
health, sex, and morality.

NARRATOR: That same
year, 1921, Sanger founds

the American Birth Control
League in New York,

a precursor to today's Planned
Parenthood Federation.

BERKOWITZ: In the 1930s, one of
Sanger's clinics ordered a box

of conical diaphragms that
were called Pessaries.

Those diaphragms arrived in the
mail and they were confiscated.

NARRATOR: Sanger sues
to get them back.

Judges side with Sanger and
declared that the government

has no right to interfere
in the health of women.

♪ [MUSIC]

This means that contraceptives
are no longer, by definition,

obscene and can now move
freely through the U.S. mail.

BERKOWITZ: That was an enormous
victory for Margaret Sanger.

Really, from the 30s,
contraception has been much

more widely available.

WOMAN: Did you say bed?
WOMAN: Yeah.

WOMAN: That's not to relax
him, that's for action.

COMELLA: That case ends up being
a really important turning point

in giving women an ability
to exercise more control

and autonomy in the bedroom.

NARRATOR: Sanger
victoriously announces

the birth control
movement is free.

SANGER: I believe that there
should be no more babies

in starving countries
for the next 10 years.

NARRATOR: But it looks
like she spoke too soon.

Some states had written their
own versions of Comstock Laws

against birth control.

And three decades later, one
of these little Comstock Laws

triggers another battle
in the fight for control

over the bedroom.

MORRIS: Well, I'm a hundred
percent against birth control

because it's immoral.

It's the same as
prostitution or abortion,

or in any others in
those immoral things.

NARRATOR: In 1961, James G.
Morris files a complaint against

the newly opened New Haven
Planned Parenthood Clinic

for violating the
Connecticut Comstock Law

and butts heads with its
director, Estelle Griswold.

GRISWOLD: Well, I think it's
very evident that the law

is unenforceable.

I think if you had a policeman
under every bed in the state

of Connecticut, they still
could not prove anything.

NARRATOR: Griswold is fined
and her clinic is shut down,

but she appeals, and the Supreme
Court agrees to hear her case.

On June 7th, 1965, the high
court proclaims that the right

to birth control does
extend to married couples.

BERKOWITZ: The Supreme Court
held that even though the word

privacy isn't written
anywhere in the constitution,

we have a right to
have sex as we want.

That notion that a person's body
and a person's sexual activity

should be free from interference
from the government

cannot be overstated.

NARRATOR: But the ruling in the
Griswold case would have to be

stated over and over again.

ALLRED: I had to risk my life
with someone who was not

licensed, which I did,
and I almost died.

♪ [MUSIC]

NARRATOR: In Colombia,
South America,

prostitution is legal
throughout the country,

in so called tolerance zones,

but a new bride in Cali,
Columbia can only make love

to her husband if her
mother is in the room.

It doesn't matter what
country you live in.

When the government gets
involved in people's sex lives,

it can lead to confusion,
contradiction,

and a slew of unforeseen
consequences.

[CROWD SHOUTING]

STRUB: Griswold has
decided in 1965,

this is the beginning of the
arc of what we often called

the sexual revolution.

♪ [MUSIC]

Society is beginning to change
its views on the regulation

of sexuality.

KLEIN: Americans have the
right to birth control,

oh, wait, wait, wait,
if they're married.

But what about all these baby
boomers who are now in College,

are they gonna be allowed
to have birth control?

NARRATOR: Legalizing birth
control for unmarried couples

becomes the mission of a
31-year-old medical researcher

named, Bill Baird.

In 1963, while coordinating
research at the Harlem

New York Hospital, Baird
is shaken by a shocking scene.

BAIRD: I heard screams that
I'll never forget and I saw

this young black mother covered
with blood from the waist down

with an eight-inch piece
of white cord hanger

sticking out of her body.

She died in front of me.

I found out she had no
knowledge of birth control

because New York State Law said,
birth control was a crime

and I thought that
was dead wrong.

BERKOWITZ: He became a
self-appointed contraception

advocate.

BAIRD: I gathered mobile
clinic, 25-foot van.

I drove it to poor areas like
Harlem and I would give them

free birth control, and
that work spread rapidly.

BERKOWITZ: He would go and
do speaking engagements,

and rallies, and he was
arrested many times.

NARRATOR: On April 6, 1967,
Boston University students

conspire with Baird to provoke a
challenge to a Massachusetts Law

that severely restricts
access to contraception

for unmarried women.

BAIRD: I arranged before I
got up on the stage with

a 19-year-old student for me to
give her a contraceptive foam.

The moment I gave it to her, the
police came up to handcuff me.

BERKOWITZ: Fornication at that
point in Massachusetts was

a misdemeanor in all that no
one was ever prosecuted for it

but the providing of birth
control was, in fact, felony.

MAN: Mr. Baird, your trial
is next week and it still

is very likely that you will
serve time in jail.

Do you have any thoughts?

BAIRD: Well, if this is the
price I must pay to help society

to move forward,
then this I must.

NARRATOR: Baird is convicted.

The judge declares him a menace
to society and sentences him

to three months in the infamous
Charles Street Jail.

BAIRD: It was a very
powerful time of my life,

but an inner voice told
me, if I can just hold on,

the U.S. Supreme Court
might hear me.

NARRATOR: On March 22nd, 1972,
the high court hears Baird

loud and clear and topples the
last barrier to contraception.

EISENBACH: Thanks to the
equal protection law,

it was manifestly unfair to
prohibit one class of women,

unmarried women, from getting
access to contraception

that you are allowing married
women to get access to.

BAIRD: This is what
the Supreme Court said,

if the right to
privacy means anything,

it is the right of the
individual to be free,

to decide whether to
bare or beget a child.

KLEIN: It erased the line
between the sexuality

that married people
are allowed to have

and the sexuality that unmarried
people are allowed to have.

JILLETTE: Bill Baird
accomplished something

that should have never
had to be accomplished.

He made contraception legal.

BERKOWITZ: Did it take someone
as single-minded and as selfless

as Baird to allow the rest
of us to have contraception?

Yes.

NARRATOR: Bill Baird's efforts
pay off with the legal president

that rewrites the government's
role in the bedroom

and in even more
intimate spaces.

ALLRED: Before 1973,
when I became pregnant,

in order to terminate
my pregnancy,

which I desired to do, I had to
risk my life with someone

who was not licensed, which
I did and I almost died.

CRONKITE: Good Evening.

In a landmark ruling, the
Supreme Court today legalized

abortions.

STRUB: Roe v. Wade is the next
level of expanding that zone

of governmental noninterference
in the bedroom or the body.

WOMAN: Can you
afford this child?

Can you afford to give it
what you wanna give it?

It takes more than love and
affection to raise a child

in this day and age.

INTERVIEWER: Personally,
would you have an abortion?

WOMAN: Yes, I would.

I'm on my way to
have one right now.

♪ [MUSIC]

NARRATOR: The decision on Roe V.
Wade becomes a battle cry

for the conservative movement in
the war over the government's

role in the bedroom.

COULTER: If you're going
to do something that's not

in the constitution and pretend
that it's in the constitution,

I think that would have been
much better result

state by state.

WOMAN: What's your plan today?

MAN: Well, we don't have a plan.

We simply come here to save baby
because abortion is murder.

ALLRED: It is going to be a
battle that will continue

because essentially it's a
battle to control women.

NARRATOR: In 2012, the United
Nations makes a controversial

declaration, that access to
birth control is a universal

human right, recognizing that
women should be empowered

to control their own sexuality.

♪ [MUSIC]

When it comes to addressing
global concerns over sex workers

or prostitutes, the
pathway is not as clear.

In 2016, Amnesty International
calls for nations

to decriminalize prostitution.

TAORMINO: Decriminalization
is essentially the commitment

for the government to say,
we're no longer interested

in this as a crime.

NARRATOR: That model is
often denounced by groups

that see any plan that
perpetuates prostitution

is harmful to women.

WOMAN: It is so
simple to create safe,

fair working conditions
for sex workers,

what they need is
nothing special,

just exactly the same
rights as other people.

NARRATOR: Another option on
the table is legalization,

a system embraced by countries
of Turkey, The Netherlands,

and Ecuador.

TAORMINO: If we legalize it,
then it is subject to rules,

regulations, and potentially
government intervention in it.

It is yet another extension of
the government attempting

to control and regulate
women's bodies for them.

BIEN-AIMEÉ: And then there's
the third model that is known

as the Nordic model that we
hope will be the global model

which was initiated
in Sweden in 1999.

GUPTA: The Nordic model
addresses the demand

by penalizing the Johns and
decriminalizing the women.

It shifted the blame away from
the victim to the perpetuator.

TAORMINO: The problem
with it is that,

it's still ultimately operating
from a place of shame

and stigma.

So they're saying, we're
gonna lift the stigma

and the criminalization off of
one end of this transaction

but we're still gonna shame
and criminalize the other end

of the transaction.

NARRATOR: As nations debate
the different solutions,

the goal remains the same.

GUPTA: Women need to have
equal opportunities as men

and they need to have choices
other than prostitution.

BIEN-AIMEÉ: In a world were
women were considered

full human beings, there
would be no prostitution.

NARRATOR: Full recognition and
equal treatment is the goal

for another sexually
oppressed group.

MCCARTHY: The fight to expose
those who will destroy

this nation will go on and on.

BERKOWITZ: They were
seen as sexual perverts.

♪ [MUSIC]

NARRATOR: The Soviet Union
tightened the leash on its own

citizens, when it criminalized
homosexuality in 1934.

Joseph Stalin sets the price
tag for being gay at up to

five years hard labor.

In 1950s America, communists
are subject to a witch hunt,

right alongside another
group branded Un-American.

MCCARTHY: I might kill the
solemn promise the fight

to expose those who will destroy
this nation will go on and on.

BERKOWITZ: Right
alongside the Red Scare,

there was something that we now
we called the Lavender Scare

which was the fear that
homosexuals wherein

the government corrupting
American government from within.

NARRATOR: The US Government
believed the gays

who hide their homosexuality
could easily be blackmailed

by Russian agents.

Republican Senator Joseph
McCarthy leads the government

charge right into the
boudoirs of private citizens.

EISENBACH: McCarthy is creating
this whole public paranoia

but they can't really tell a
communist from a non-communist

by how they look and that
feeds into the anxiety

about homosexuals.

REPORTER: In towns and cities
all across the country,

men like these
marry, have children,

and keep their homosexual
contacts on the side.

This much is certain, male
homosexuals in America

number in the millions
and their number is growing.

BERKOWITZ: They were seen as
people who did not hold

to American values and they
were seen as sexual perverts.

♪ [MUSIC]

STRUB: In 1953, Dwight
Eisenhower took office as

president and almost immediately
issued Executive Order 10450

which barred homosexuals
from federal employment.

BERKOWITZ: Government employees
were encouraged to snitch

on one another.

There were many examples of
notes going to investigators

saying, this particular
woman has a man-ish walk,

this man seems to be
interested in opera.

RUSK: Policy of the department
is that we do not employ

homosexuals knowingly, and
that if we discover homosexuals

in our department,
we discharge them.

SPRINGER: Can you imagine
having to live life

where you could never have
sex, or if you did have sex,

it would have to be so quiet
that no one could know

and people could blackmail you
because they knew you had sex?

Well, you know, we'd go, what?

Gay people had to
accept that every day.

WALLACE: Most Americans are
repelled by the mere notion

of homosexuality.

The homosexual bitterly aware
of his rejection responds

by going underground.

NARRATOR: As the government
purges gays throughout the 1950s

and '60s, it actually plants the
seeds of a Rainbow Revolution.

CHARLES: The civil rights
movement, women's movement,

sexual revolution, the
temperature was perfect

to challenge the status quo.

NARRATOR: On June 28, 1969, a
police raid at a New York

Gay Bar, the Stonewall Inn,
erupts into rioting.

[SIREN] [CHAOS]

MONTALVO: Stonewall was a
nightly hangout for me.

I was partying with my friends
when the cops came in,

they were, like, angry,
harassing me for I.D.

and all of a sudden, we're all
being put into the paddy wagon.

BERKOWITZ: It blew up.

MONTALVO: I remember a cop
hitting one of the drag queens

and the drag queen punching
the police officer.

Now, there's a crowd forming
outside, screaming, Let them go.

Let them go.

Yeah, the protest has started.

♪ [MUSIC]

NARRATOR: The uprising at
Stonewall sparks gays to start

standing up for their rights.

EISENBACH: For the first time,
you have gays now being reported

in the press not as deviants
but as people battling

for their rights on
the streets of New York

and that was a revelation.

REPORTER: What do you
want the police to do?

MAN: We want them off our backs.

We want them to stop harassing
us, stop pushing us around.

REV. PALACIOS: When I started
to pay attention to the news

and the Stonewall riots
occurred, I was deeply affected

by thinking to myself, I'm one
of those folks.

I'm one of those guys.

I'm gay.

MONTALVO: Everybody really
realized it's not about

drag queens or extremely
conservative gay men,

we're in this together.

And if we don't do it
together, we're gonna fail.

REV. PALACIOS: Stonewall opened
up a whole new thing that,

why should my private life not
be public and should we not

then unite in an integral way
private and public lives?

I should not have
a heart divided.

STRUB: What Stonewall reflects
is what becomes known

as gay liberation, an
in-your-face brash

in the streets defiant movement.

♪ [MUSIC]

WEISS: Not only we're gonna be
out but we're gonna show you

everything, we're gonna
dance it on the stage

and we're gonna put
it in sparkles,

in sequence, and put
it up on a parade

because you can't stop us now.

STRUB: Dozens of cities pass
non-discrimination ordinances

that give gay people
new rights under,

you know, existing
civil right statutes.

NARRATOR: AND IN 2016 PRESIDENT
OBAMA DECLARED A PARK ACROSS

FROM THE STONEWALL INN TO BE A
NATIONAL HISTORIC MONUMENT

IN RECOGNITION OF LGBT
CIVIL LIBERTIES.

BRYANT: ♪ Jesus loves me.

STRUB: With increased visibility
for gay communities also comes

backlash.

D'EMILIO: Anita Bryant, former
beauty queen, popular singer,

went public in opposition
to Dade County, Florida

non-discrimination
ordinance.

BRYANT: In our campaign,
we talk about the danger

of the homosexual becoming
a role model to our children.

STRUB: That framing of gay
rights as an infringement

on the rights of straight people
to protect their children

really carried a lot of weight.

NARRATOR: Bryant's campaign,
Save Our Children,

draws from conservative
Christian values,

and presses for more government
scrutiny of the sex lives

of its citizens.

STRUB: The crusade goes
into dozens of cities around

the country and begins revoking
the exact progress

that had just been made
in the last five years.

NARRATOR: Bryant's vocal
opposition to gay rights

meets up with the unique
form of armed resistance.

BRYANT: Were met with protest
and all kinds of problems.

And the, every.

[Ohh... Ohhh...]

MAN: Security agents,
security agents.

MAN: No, no, let him
stay, let him stay.

BRYANT: Well, at least
it's a fruit pie, huh.

MAN: Let's pray, let's
pray for him right now.

Anita, let's pray.

Anita, why don't you pray?

That's all right.

BRYANT: God, I wanna ask
that you forgive him.

MAN: That we love him.
BRYANT: And that we love him

and that we're praying for him
to be delivered from his deviant

lifestyle, Father. And I just.

[CRYING]

NARRATOR: The gay
community isn't alone

in its struggle against
government interference

during the most intimate
of moments.

EISENBACH: The Sheriff barges
into the bedroom of Richard

and Mildred Loving.

LOVING: When I woke up and
there was the police man,

standing beside the bed.

♪ [MUSIC]

NARRATOR: What do France, China,
and Sudan all have in common?

There are ways to marry a dead
person in these countries.

But throughout history, if you
wanted to marry someone

who is alive but from another
race the law was dead set

against it.

LOVING: I didn't realize how bad
it was until we got married.

♪ [MUSIC]

NARRATOR: An interracial
couple in the US,

confronts the most literal
example of government

in the bedroom.

[SIREN]

LOVING: And I saw
those lights, you know,

and I woke up and then
there's a policeman

standing beside the bed.

♪ [MUSIC]

STRUB: In a nation that is
fundamentally founded

on racial division,
white supremacy,

MAN: I, for one, and the God
will die before I yield one inch

STRUB: Anxieties around
interracial sexuality date back

to the founding of the republic.

GOODWIN: Legislators shall
believe that African-Americans

were so tainted that interracial
couples would breathe and spawn

people who would be physically
inferior, mentally inferior.

D'EMILIO: And so American
law, especially in the south,

prohibited interracial
marriages,

they were called
anti-miscegenation laws.

NARRATOR: Mildred was the
daughter of a share cropper

who married the boy next door,

a construction worker
named Richard Loving.

BERKOWITZ: Mildred Loving and
her husband got married in

Washington DC because their
marriage was not permitted

in Virginia and then they
returned to Virginia to live.

[SIREN]

EISENBACH: On the night of
July 11th, 1958, a sheriff,

Garret Brooks, barges
into the bedroom

of Richard and Mildred Loving.

The sheriff then asked them,
you know, who is this woman?

And Richard Loving
is like, my wife.

Boom, they both get arrested.

LOVING: They locked us up in
January to head to trial.

And they told us to leave
the state for 25 years.

EISENBACH: Mildred
says, you know what,

we shouldn't have
to put up with this.

And she writes a letter
to Robert Kennedy,

then the Attorney General,
and he puts her in touched

with the ACLU.

COHEN: It was that simple
letter that got us into this

not so simple case.

HIRSCHKOP: These statutes
are slavery statutes.

NARRATOR: After nine years
of clearing legal hurdles,

they reached the Supreme Court
to ask the justices to remove

the government from this
unwanted threesome.

♪ [MUSIC]

On June 12th of 1967, the
Supreme Court decided

that Richard and Mildred
Loving had the legal right

to be husband and wife.

♪ [MUSIC]

The decision struck down
anti-miscegenation laws

in Virginia and 15 other states.

STRUB: Loving v. Virginia
is a very important precedent

in that, the Supreme Court
explicitly declares marriage

a fundamental right.

STRUB: How can they ban same sex
marriage if the Supreme Court

has explicitly said
marriage is a fundamental

constitutional right.

WILLIAMS: Two Cincinnati men who
were legally married in Maryland

are taking the state of
Ohio to federal court

for not recognizing
their marriage.

♪ [MUSIC]

NARRATOR: In modern-day Monaco,
if you want to get married,

you need to post a written
announcement on the town hall

for 10 days.

Across the globe, governments
love to legislate who can and

can't get married for reasons
of control, paranoia, or fear.

BROKAW: Scientist of the
National Centers for Disease

Control in Atlanta today
released the results of a study

which shows that the lifestyle
of some male homosexuals

has triggered an epidemic of
a rare form of cancer.

♪ [MUSIC]

NARRATOR: In the 1980s,
the world is faced

with a new crisis, HIV/AIDS.

CHO: I lost a lot of
people that I love.

They would be very
healthy, very strong,

and then they would
seem a little weaker,

and then you wouldn't
see them again.

Within about five years, a
community that had been totally

bustling, totally busy, totally
vibrant completely disappeared.

NARRATOR: The epidemic forges a
bound within the gay community,

a strength in numbers that
will become critically useful.

D'EMILIO: AIDS brought more gay
people out of the closet

than gay liberation
was ever able to do.

It made them join organizations.

It made them engage
in demonstrations.

EISENBACH: Gay marriage really
becomes a very important issue

for the gay community
when the AIDS crisis hits.

SAVAGE: We couldn't determine
our own immediate next of kin.

Families blew into hospital
rooms with sick and dying men

and had their partners
of 30 years thrown out

of their hospitals, families
disappeared with the bodies of

deceased men and refused to tell
their partners, their husbands,

in all but name, where they
buried their relative.

What we needed were the
protections of marriage

that kick in at the worst
moments of your life.

We saw, firsthand, the
consequences of not having

those protections.

NARRATOR: In the decades
following the AIDS crisis,

LGBT communities around the
world make steady legal gains.

Many nations legalize
same sex marriage,

the Netherlands in 2001, South
Africa 2006, Argentina 2010.

REV. PALACIOS: Spain,
Argentina, Mexico,

a number of the Catholic
countries, you know,

have been very much there with
the supportive marriage equality

and gay rights because I think
people have understood

that this is a matter of seeing
each person as a child of God.

NARRATOR: But in
the United States,

the legality of same sex
marriages resides

with individual states.

And through the early 2000s,
not all states allow it.

NARRATOR: Two Ohio men
became the standard bearers

in the fight for marriage
equality across the country.

STRUB: James Obergefell
and his husband John Arthur

could not be married in
their home state of Ohio.

They went to Maryland, a
state that did recognize

marriage equality to be married.

OBERGEFELL: I can't
believe it's happening.

NARRATOR: Because John Arthur is
paralyzed from a neurological

disease called ALS, widely
known as Lou Gehrig's disease,

they marry as soon as the
jet lands in Maryland.

Ten minutes later, they're
heading back to Ohio.

OBERGEFELL: Just happy,
that's all I can say.

JOHN ARTHUR: I'm overjoyed.

NARRATOR: When they land, Ohio
refuses to recognize

their marriage.

WILLIAMS: Two Cincinnati men who
were legally married in Maryland

are taking the state of
Ohio to federal court

for not recognizing
their marriage.

NARRATOR: One hundred one
days after their wedding,

Arthur dies.

Undaunted, Obergefell
continues the appeal.

And on June 26th, 2015, the
US Supreme Court presents

its ruling, a dramatic shake
up of the government's role

in the bedroom.

HOLT: Now that that historic
Supreme Court decision

legalizing same-sex
marriage across the land

and it's profound the five
to four vote in many ways

reflecting the huge societal
shift of the last twenty years.

OBERGEFELL: Today's ruling
from the Supreme Court affirms

what millions across this
country already know to be true

in our hearts, our
love is equal.

BERKOWITZ: Obergefell
carried the notion that under

the due process clause
of the 14th amendment,

one has a right to individual
autonomy because gay people

choose marriage, there is an
absolutely no reason for society

to withhold that
validation from them.

Their individual
autonomy trumps the law.

SAVAGE: There's a line that's at
the end of every Supreme Court

decision, it is so ordered
that just devastated me

to have had the word disorder
thrown at us throughout history,

and all my life, that a
homosexual person is disordered.

And then to get to the end of
this decision and see the word

ordered without dis in front of
it in reference to our rights,

to our humanity really, it makes
me cry to talk about it.

LEMON: I grew up never thinking
about the possibility of being

able to be married or to be
public with the person

that I loved.

And now, that has completely
changed so it has rocked

my world.

CHO: It was a great relief,
it was a great victory,

and it's something
that I still celebrate.

I think it's very,
very, very exciting.

♪ [MUSIC]

BERKOWITZ: The fight
that she's fighting.

DAVIS: I just want to
serve my neighbors quietly

without violating my conscience.

BERKOWITZ: Is a
fight to the death.

♪ [MUSIC]

♪ [MUSIC]

NARRATOR: No checkmate for you,

it's illegal to play chess while
having sex in Tallinn, Estonia.

In Santa Cruz, Bolivia, you can
have sex with the mother

and daughter at the same time.

And thanks to one long time
state employee making her

own law, it was impossible
for anyone to get married

in one particular
county in Kentucky.

[SHOUTING]

HOLT: That historic
Supreme Court decision,

legalizing same-sex marriage.

WILLIAMS: It's the most
important gay rights ruling ever

PRES. BARACK OBAMA: This
decision affirms what millions

of Americans already
believe in their heart.

When all Americans are treated
as equal, we are all more free.

MOORE: In Kentucky, I thought
it would take a hundred years

before that would be legal.

It's never gonna happen for me.

REPORTER: Couples who fought the
bans in Kentucky were ecstatic.

MOORE: I was like,
well, it's legal now.

I'm gonna have to
get married now.

But the very next day,
our accounting clerk made

the statement that she would not
be issuing any marriage license.

We're getting ready to go into
the Rowan County Courthouse

and apply for a
marriage license.

ERMOLD: We've been
together for 17 years,

we live in Rowan
County for 10 years,

and we feel that it's
our right as citizens.

MOORE: We went in, we waited
for probably, like, 10 minutes,

her deputy clerks were
talking to everyone.

They said they weren't issuing
marriage licenses at all.

And we were like, well,
who can we talk to?

Can we talk to
the country clerk?

DAVIS: Well, I advise you
to put your phone low.

MOORE: Well, I asked
her what, you know,

what is the horrible thing
that's gonna happen

if you give us a license
and she said, Well,

I'm worried about my salvation.

I'm worried about going to hell.

ERMOLD: And then he said, well,
it's likely you probably gave

a marriage license to
murderers and child molesters.

And she said, well, yeah, but
they would've been a man

and a wife.

It was that moment, when
she said that, I was,

I was finished and I was like,
that's, we're fighting this one.

NARRATOR: The American Civil
Liberties Union files a contempt

of court notion against
Davis but she fights back

citing religious freedom.

MAN: Every public official
in our democracy is subject

to the rule of law.

CROWD: [Inaudible].

MOORE: People were
getting bussed in.

Anti-gay church groups
were coming out.

So it was very tense.

♪ [MUSIC]

MOORE: I'm good.
How are you doing?

MOORE: The Supreme
Court decided.

ERMOLD: There is no more appeal,
there is no more appeal,

it's been ruled by the Supreme
Court of the United States

that we people are citizens
in this country and we deserve

our right.

We deserve our rights.

What she has done
is unconscionable,

it's unforgivable,
it's absolutely,

absolutely ludicrous.

Don't smile at me.

ERMOLD: You absolutely
have disrespected us.

MOORE: Would you do this
to an interracial couple?

DAVIS: I would ask you
all to go ahead and we.

MOORE: Why are you not
issuing marriage licenses?

MOORE: Why?

ERMOLD: Under whose authority
are you not issuing licenses?

MOORE: I didn't expect Dave
to ask her that question.

I was glad that he did say that
because it forced her to really

kind of reveal to everyone that
she was putting her personal

religious beliefs
above our constitution.

BERKOWITZ: You can put Kim Davis
in the context of Comstock.

The fight that she's fighting
is a fight to the death.

CROWD: [Inaudible].

BERKOWITZ: While her beliefs
are deserving of respect,

she had no choice but
to follow the law.

NARRATOR: DAVIS TRIED TO TAKE
HER CASE TO THE US SUPREME COURT

BY REFUSING TO HEAR THE CASE,

THE COURT MADE IT CLEAR THAT
PERSONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

IS NOT A LAWFUL ARGUMENT
TO DISCRIMINATE.

MOORE: She was thrown in
jail for contempt of court.

SUPPORTER: We want Kim to be
our Rosa Parks who says, No,

I will lay my comfort
down and my life down,

as she already has by going
to jail for six days

in order to stand on God's word.

HUCKABEE: I feel like she's
shown more courage

than most any politician I know.

MOORE: We finally got our
license a few days after

our last encounter with Kim
Davis from her deputy clerks.

COHEN: Those guys
are brave, you know,

anyone who gets up in the face
of hate and speaks their truth

and tries to impact
change is brave.

That's how we make progress.

NARRATOR: Throughout history,
governments push their way into

and back out of our bedrooms.

And knowing when we want their
company and when we want

our privacy is a question
we need to keep asking.

BERKOWITZ: I think what the law
needs to focus on in the coming

decades is protection
of one person from imposing

his or her will on another.

EISENBACH: And now that we
have begun to really escape

the judgments of the past,
I think we can actually have

an adult conversation in a way
that we were incapable

of having when morality was
just thrown in our face.

JILLETTE: Once you have
consensual sex between adults,

there is no place for the
government ever, ever, ever.

SAVAGE: The government has no
role in the private consensual

sexual conduct of adults,

♪ [MUSIC]

period, the end.

♪ [MUSIC]