In this Under the Covers episode, we visit with David Collins, author of Accidental Activists: Mark Phariss, Vic Holmes and Their Fight for Marriage Equality in Texas.

Dale Carpenter, professor of law at the Dedman School of Law (Southern Methodist University) says that Accidental Activists is a “beautifully written book” that tells “the story of two men who did the extraordinary in order to live a life of the ordinary.”

Accidental Activists is, first and foremost, a love story of two men, who sixteen years after they met and fell in love, decided that the time had come to bring the fight for same-sex marriage to their home state of Texas.

The book deals with the crippling anxiety they felt growing up gay, the pain and suffering inflicted on them by straight society and, most of all, the ultimate triumph of two courageous men who rose up against determined political and cultural adversaries, fought the legal battles that made gay marriage the law in Texas, and joyfully claimed their right to love in the country they loved.