When the lawsuit was announced Wednesday, some at the press conference raised these concerns and asked whether the lawsuit might be premature, a question that prompted one of the more mind-boggling scenes in civil rights history. In response, Olson—Ted Olson!—argued that justice delayed is justice denied. This put him to the left of the ACLU on one of the nation’s most contentious social issues of the day. He acknowledged that some may disagree about the timing of the suit. But he explained that when gay people came to him and said that their constitutional rights were being violated, that they wanted to be married and have the same rights as other Californians, he could not, as a lawyer, say, “Why don’t you just wait another 10 years, 15 years?”

Olson was put on the spot about his association with conservative organizations, and he insisted that he had never been a part of any organization that he considered anti-gay, which is sort of disingenuous considering that he worked for both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, who were both anti-gay in their policies—especially Reagan, who studiously refused to address the AIDS epidemic for years as thousands of gay men died. Still, a review of the public record does indicate that Olson has not joined the right’s anti-gay efforts.