Below, an excerpt of the transcript that hits on some of the bigger questions:

BILL MOYERS: But the voters in California spoke very clearly, 52 to 48. The referendum said, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” And you’re telling the majority of those voters they’re wrong?

DAVID BOIES: If you didn’t tell the majority of the voters they were wrong sometimes under the Constitution, you wouldn’t need a constitution. The whole point of the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment is to say, “This is democracy. But it’s also democracy in which we protect minority rights.” The whole point of a Constitution is to say there are certain things that a majority cannot do, whether it’s 52 percent or 62 percent or 72 percent or 82 percent of the people.

They can’t say, for example, that blacks and whites can’t go to school together — even though 82 percent of the people may think that. They can’t say that women aren’t allowed to vote, or are not allowed to work in the workplace, or not allowed equal rights or equal wages — even though a majority of people might vote that way in some places.

There are certain rights that are so fundamental that the Constitution guarantees them to every citizen regardless of what a temporary majority may or may not vote for. And remember, what Ted said is very important. Nobody’s asking to create a new constitutional right here. This is a constitutional right that has already been well recognized by the Supreme Court. And what the Supreme Court has said is that even a democratic-elected legislature in Wisconsin cannot decide by majority rule that marriage scofflaws. People who don’t pay their child support, who abuse their children, abuse their wives, cannot get remarried again.

They said marriage is so fundamental that you can’t take it away, even for people who have abused an initial marriage. Missouri, the legislature, democratic-elected legislature voted majority rule, overwhelmingly, that imprisoned felons could not get married. Supreme Court says, “No, even though they can’t live together, they can’t be together, marriage is such a fundamental human right that you can’t take that away.”

. . . The 14th Amendment. And remember, the 14th Amendment was passed just after we got rid of slavery, which prohibited slaves from getting married. And one of the things that happened when slavery was abolished was large numbers of African Americans rushed to get married, because they viewed this as one of the most important human relationships. And they viewed the recognition, the sanctioning of that relationship as critical to their ability to live together as a family.

And the same thing is happening with gays and lesbians in our society today. We’re saying to these people, “You are somehow less than human. We’re not going to give you all of humanity’s rights.” Because remember, if we recognize them as human, if we recognize them as full citizens, the Constitution guarantees that they have equal protection of the laws. They have the same rights as any heterosexual.

BILL MOYERS: So, you’re both comfortable invalidating seven million votes in California?

TED OLSON: Well, this happens when the voters decide to violate someone’s constitutional rights.

If you can’t watch, the full transcripts is available here.