Monday, January 25, 2010

And the plaintiffs "rest"


The plaintiffs -- those challenging Proposition 8 as an unconstitutional move to take equally protected rights away from a "vulnerable minority" -- rested their case in federal court in San Francisco today and the testimony shifted to the "expert witnesses" put forward by the defense. (And I DO use the words "expert witness" loosely!)

Here's a great summary by Rick Jacobs of the Courage Campaign on what the testimony so far has demonstrated:

“This evidence is not just a smoking gun. It was an arsenal of incendiary devices directed at the LGBT community and voters. This is how the Prop 8 side won — through fear and lies.” -- Rick Jacobs

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Rick Jacobs, Chair of the Courage Campaign Institute, issued the following statement on the Prop 8 campaign videos and documents introduced into evidence in the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial. The new evidence shows how the Prop 8 campaign tried to link marriage equality to incest, bestiality, pedophilia and polygamy:

“This morning’s evidence made the Prop 8 side’s strategy crystal clear — use fear and lies to promote hate. It is horrifying that Prop 8 proponents would compare marriage equality to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and imply that marriage equality will open the door to pedophilia, incest and bestiality.”

“Ron Prentice, Andrew Pugno and their Prop 8 team — with the highly capable and apparently deeply cynical leadership of Frank Schubert — created a permanent campaign to scare voters into believing that same-sex marriage would threaten children, undermine America and lead to every form of illicit behavior imaginable.”

“This evidence is not just a smoking gun. It was an arsenal of incendiary devices directed at the LGBT community and voters. This is how the Prop 8 side won — through fear and lies.”

“Finally, this morning we saw indisputable, documented evidence in the form of emails and videos that Ron Prentice and Protect Marriage coordinated closely and relied upon the Catholic Church, the LDS Church, the Family Research Council, Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown and the National Organization for Marriage to get Prop. 8 on the ballot and to win through a campaign of lies.”

“Last week, the Supreme Court erased decades of precedent by ruling that corporations have the same rights as people when it comes to speech. Let’s hope that the court will as readily see that LGBT people have at least the same rights as corporations and surely the same rights as other people.”

Via the Prop 8 Trial Tracker web site, the Courage Campaign Institute has brought the proceedings to the public in real time, garnering more than 1.1 million views and helping fuel an online community of “Trial Trackers” posting more than 11,000 comments to date. Check it out here.

4 comments:

IT said...

WEll, even given the Courage Campaign's interest in making our side stronger, it's hard to over state how incompetent their "Expert Witness" appeared. Once he admitted that after his deposition, he crammed with materials from the defense attorney...\
But the problem remains that this trial is not about Judge Walker. Or even the 9th circuit. this trial is about one person, Supreme court justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote on ScOTUS. And as a middle aged Catholic man, frankly, I don't see him finding in ourfavor.
I fear this case will be our Bowers, not our Lawrence.

LGMarshall said...

1man+1man falls into the 'Wrong' category for those who literally believe Judeo-Christian Scripture. You must understand that we wonder what other God forbidden relations will become held up as being wonderful.

Is bestiality Wrong? Is incest Wrong? Sex with underage?

Why or Why not?-- please do not use the Bible in your argument, because that would be inconsistent.

MarkBrunson said...

1man+1man falls into the 'Wrong' category for those who literally believe Judeo-Christian Scripture.

But 1man+severalwomen is perfectly allright.

BTW, what was the age of consent set in the Bible again? How closely related constitutes incest? I believe there were first cousins marrying in the Bible, yes?

What we see, quite clearly, is that we are capable of being far more moral than those who wrote these ancient laws - which was not God, btw . . . none of it's in His handwriting.

Good Lord, LGMarshall! You've been very publicly refuted, rebuked and corrected on all of this before. It's in writing right on this blog! Ignorance is one thing, but persistent, perverse and wilfull ignorance has another word for it - which I will not apply to you here, out of deference to Susan, who is far more righteous than any right-wing "christian" literalist.

IT said...

Oh,and today's pro-Prop8 "expert" witness actually said:


DB: I believe that adoption of same sex marriage would be likely to improve the well-being of gay and lesbian households and their children.