What do Mary Bono Mack, James B. Comey, Jon Huntsman, Ken Mehlman, Steve Schmidt, William F. Weld, and Meg Whitman have in common? In addition to being conservative leaders, they’re also signatories to a brief calling on the Supreme Court to overturn Prop. 8.

Additional names are still being added, with a final list of names to be released when the brief is filed with the Supreme Court. Enacted in November 2008, Proposition 8 eliminated the fundamental freedom of gay and lesbian Californians to marry.

Building bi-partisan support has been part of AFER’s mission ever since the filing of its federal constitutional challenge to overturn Proposition 8. AFER assembled a bi-partisan legal team led by Theodore B. Olson, Solicitor General of the United States during the first term of President George W. Bush, and renowned litigator David Boies to demonstrate that Proposition 8 violates the United States Constitution by denying millions of people their fundamental right to marry and their right to equal protection of the laws.

In January 2010, AFER worked with Ted Olson to land a cover story in Newsweek entitled “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage.” This was the first time that a nationally recognized conservative of Mr. Olson’s stature had laid out the reasons why conservatives should support marriage equality.

In September 2010, AFER hosted a New York event to help shore up support for the Perry case. The event was the first to tap into Republican support for marriage equality and was attended by members of John McCain’s presidential campaign and Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign, members of the Bush administration, corporate CEOs, two former GOP governors, and representatives from every major firm on Wall Street. This coalition of supporters stayed together and went on to fund New York’s successful marriage equality effort in 2011 and New Hampshire’s successful effort in February 2012.

While the list of amici continues to grow, the current list includes: