What Rob Reiner believed
Rob Reiner, an actor, writer, and director, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, a photographer and producer, were found dead at their home in Los Angeles on Sunday. Their son, Nick Reiner, who has struggled with drug addiction, was booked for murder and is currently being held without bail.
Reiner was best known for his involvement in iconic television shows and movies, including All in The Family, When Harry Met Sally, and The Princess Bride. He was also a progressive political activist.
Just hours after his death, President Trump attacked Reiner. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said Reiner’s death was “due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” According to Trump, Reiner “was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness.”
Reiner was an outspoken critic of Trump. But he leaves behind a rich political legacy that began long before Trump’s political career. Reiner redefined celebrity political advocacy, not only lending his voice to important causes, but also implementing strategies that brought change.
Reiner, who played the character “Meathead” on All in the Family, said his activism was influenced by Norman Lear, the creator of the show. “What I learned from Norman was that you could use your fame, your celebrity, whatever, to actually do some things in the political sphere,” Reiner said in a 2024 interview. “Norman was a tremendous inspiration to me.”
Reiner was a champion for young children
In 1997, Reiner created the I Am Your Child Foundation to raise awareness about the importance of the first three years of childhood development. That year, Reiner was invited to speak at the White House Conference on Early Development and Learning , where he made the case for supporting children from age zero to three.
If we want to have a real significant impact, not only on children’s success in school and later on in life, healthy relationships, but also an impact on reduction in crime, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, child abuse, welfare, homelessness, and a variety of other social ills, we are going to have to address the first three years of life. There is no getting around it. All roads lead to Rome.
In 1998, Reiner was the driving force behind California’s Proposition 10, which imposed a tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products to support early childhood development. He recruited Republican Michael Huffington as a co-chair to ensure it would be a bipartisan effort. After the initiative passed, Reiner served as chairman of the California Children and Families Commission, now known as First 5 California Ca, for seven years.
Twenty percent of the revenue generated by the tobacco tax goes to First 5 California to advance “early care and education, child health and development, family resiliency, research, and community awareness” statewide. The remainder of the revenue is distributed to California’s 58 counties to fund programs tailored to each area. In fiscal year 2023-24, the tax generated over $300 million in revenue.
Reiner played a critical role in establishing marriage equality as a federal right
After the 2008 passage of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, Reiner established the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER). Reiner used the group to finance the legal battle challenging the ban. Bucking much of the liberal establishment, Reiner insisted on a high-risk legal strategy that sought to challenge Proposition 8 as unconstitutional.
AFER recruited Ted Olson, a prominent conservative lawyer, and David Boies, a top liberal lawyer, to lead the legal effort. Olson and Boies had squared off against each other in the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore, which decided the 2000 election.
In an appearance on MSNBC, Reiner argued marriage equality was a core civil rights issue. “We don’t believe in separate but equal in any other legal position except this,” Reiner said. “We feel that this is the last piece of the civil rights puzzle being put into place.”
The couples represented by AFER lawyers won their case in federal district court. The Supreme Court eventually dismissed the appeal on standing grounds, effectively restoring same-sex marriage in California. The case paved the way for the eventual establishment of a federal right to same-sex marriage in 2015.
After the victory, Reiner continued to speak out for equal rights for all people. “We have to move past singling out transgender, LGBTQ, Black, white, Jewish, Muslim, Latino. We have to get way past that and start accepting the idea that we’re all human beings,” Reiner said at a Human Rights Campaign event in 2019. “We’re all human beings, we all share the same planet, and we should all have the same rights, period.”
Reiner opposed the Iraq War, saying protesters were patriots
“This is the greatest support we could ever give to our troops because what we are trying to do is protect them from going into harm’s way needlessly,” Reiner said in a 2003 CNN interview. “There is no God-awful reason to go to war at this moment. There is no reason to rush into this war, and what we are trying to do is protect our troops from sending them into harm’s way.”
Reiner frequently compared the Iraq War to the Vietnam War. “I just couldn’t believe we were going to war twice based on lies in my lifetime,” Reiner told The Independent in 2018. Reiner produced a movie, Shock and Awe, that highlighted the work of Knight Ridder journalists who were among the few that questioned the official Bush administration narrative.
Reiner warned of the rise of Christian Nationalism
One of Reiner’s last projects was God & Country, a 2024 documentary about the growing Christian Nationalist movement. Reiner sought to distinguish Christianity, the religion, from Christian Nationalism, which is a political ideology.
“We have experts in the film, very conservative, devout Christians, leaders, thinkers, pastors, who talk specifically about how this movement is completely antithetical to the teachings of Jesus,” Reiner explained in a February 2024 podcast. “And that really is what you have to focus in on, because the idea that you could promote a political agenda in the name of God and that would give you permission to resort to any means, to get what you want up to and including violence, which we saw on January 6th, is completely antithetical to the teachings of Jesus, which is love thy neighbor, do unto others, and so on.”
Going to track down “God & Country.” Reiner was an artist in the truest sense, open and active with his gifts.
Thank you for sharing Rob Reiner's inspirational history with us all. He was an honorable human being. His light will be missed.