Propostion 8 Trial Summary Thus Far....
Let me just preface this whole thing by stating I AM NOT A LAWYER. I have taken exactly ONE law class, and outside of that everything I know about law I learned from watching shows like CSI and Law and Order.
This is a summary of the major events that have taken place in the first three days of the Prop 8 Trial. This is by no means a comprehensive list, and if anyone has anything to add or notices any mistakes I've made, please point them out! All of my previous posts on the subject, as well as some excellent outside reference articles, can be found under my Prop 8 Trial tag.
(Also, yes, this is long, but I tried to break it down into a mostly bullet-pointed list of key facts that are hopefully more readable than a giant essay.)
BACKGROUND
-I'm assuming most people know about Prop 8, but if not, here's a VERY SHORT crash course:
+California Supreme Court (SCOCA) ruled that gay marriage is legal
+Fundies got pissed off, passed Prop 8, which banned gay marriage (a couple examples of campaign ads which have been used in the trial as examples of fearmongering)
+Two homosexual couples sued the state, and the trial is expected to reach the SCOTUS. There has been opposition from people who believe it's too soon to take this to the national level, preferring the state-by-state approach to marriage equality. They believe that with the shifting demographic of more young people favoring marriage equality, patience will pay off in the end.
+There has also been support from people who believe that the state-by-state democratic process has failed, and who believe that there is a better historic precedent from the courts to grant civil rights than from the democratic process. They believe that the state-by-state method is too slow, and that they shouldn't have to wait to be granted their constitutional rights.
+One of the main risks with this case, among many others, is that if this case fails it may be a decade or more before the SCOTUS decides to hear a similar case again. There is also the fact that courts are an historically conservative institution which rarely will make a decision without the backing of majority public opinion. However, there is also significant legal precedent in favor of the case, as well as the shifting demographic of public opinion as mentioned above.
-Here's a list of the major players, stolen shamelessly from prop8trialtracker.com:
+Perry v. Schwarzenegger: the formal name of this case. Perry is one of the plaintiffs. Officially as Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the defendant, but he and the Attorney General, Jerry Brown have refused to defend Prop 8, believing it to be unconstitutional. Instead, ProtectMarriage.org (the Yes on 8 campaign) are the main defendants*. [*They are intervening on behalf of the CA governor and Attorney General, so they are therefore called the defendant-intervenors, instead of defendants.] The trial is being heard in the federal District Court.
+Judge Vaughn Walker: is Chief Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and is the presiding judge for the trial. He was nominated to the bench by Ronald Regan and has been the chief judge since 2004.
+Ted Olson: former solicitor general, who has argued in front of the Supreme Court on a number of occasions, most famously on the winning side of Bush v Gore. He is one of the preeminent conservative lawyers in the country. He will be arguing for the plaintiffs, supporting marriage equality.
+David Boies: was on the opposing side of Olson for Bush v. Gore. Much like Olson, though on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum, Boies is an extremely well-respected lawyer with lots of experience arguing in front of the Supreme Court. He and Olson are long time friends.
+American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER): The non-profit organization founded by Chad Griffin and Bruce Cohen which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs.
+ProtectMarrage.com: formerly the “Yes on 8″ campaign, the organization has evolved into an advocacy group and are acting as the primary defendants.
+Ron Prentice: former Yes on 8 chairman who now serves at the Executive Director for ProtectMarriage.com, which is leading the defense.
+Paul Katami, Jeffrey Zarillo, Kristin Perry and Sandra Steir: the four plaintiffs, two committed couples who are not permitted to wed under current California law. All of them testified on the first day of the trial. [Here is a biography about the plaintiffs.]
+Andy Pugno: ProtectMarriage.com chief legal counsel and current candidate for the Assembly.
[Additional nonplayer: Hak-Shing William "Bill" Tam, who was one of the people responsible for putting Prop 8 on the ballot and an official defendant-intervenor, has officially withdrawn from the case because he "fears for his personal safety" and "doesn't like the discovery process" which basically consists of the lawyers poking around his personal communications and asking hard questions, like why he didn't think gays and lesbians had the right to marry. A quote from Tam's public correspondence that was used during the trial: This November, San Francisco voters will vote on a ballot to “legalize prostitution”. This is put forth by the SF city government, which is under the rule of homosexuals. They lose no time in pushing the gay agenda - after legalizing same-sex marriage, they want to legalize prostitution. What will be next? On their agenda list is: legalize having sex with children. I hope we all wake up now and really work to pass Prop 8.]
-Judge Walker decided to allow taping of the trial with delayed upload to youtube.
+Defendant-intervenors opposed this on the basis that "irreparable harm" (yeah, right) would be done to the defendant-intervenors and their witnesses for testifying. SCOTUS, stupidly, decided in a 5-4 vote to ban cameras indefinitely for the trial. All SCOTUS decisions record both the reasoning behind the decision, as well as the reasoning behind the dissent. In the 17-page decision (which I think is about average sized) Justice Breyer had this to say in his dissent:
Then, on December 31, the Court revised its public notice to ask for comments directly. By January 8, 2010, the Court had received 138,574 comments, all but 32 of which favored transmitting the proceedings.
There was also sufficient “opportunity for comment.” The parties, the intervenors, other judges, the public-all had an opportunity to comment. The parties were specifically invited by Chief Judge Walker to comment on the possibility of broadcast as early as September. And the entire public was invited by the District Court to submit comments after the rule change was announced, right up to the eve of trial. As I said, the court received 138,574 comments during that time. How much more “opportunity for comment” does the Court believe necessary, particularly when the statutes themselves authorize the local court to put a new rule into effect “without” receiving any “comments” before doing so when that local “court determines that there is an immediate need” to do so (and to receive comments later)? And more importantly, what is the legal source of the Court’s demand for additional comment time in respect to a rule change to conform to Judicial Council policy?
Here's the NYT article about the decision.
STRATEGIES
-Plaintiff's trial strategy, as described by Ted Olsen's opening statement:
In the words of the California Supreme Court, eliminating the right of individuals to marry a same-sex partner relegated those individuals to “second class” citizenship, and told them, their families and their neighbors that their love and desire for a sanctioned marital partnership was not worthy of recognition.
During this trial, Plaintiffs and leading experts in the fields of history, psychology, economics and political science will prove three fundamental points:
First - Marriage is vitally important in American society.
Second - By denying gay men and lesbians the right to marry, Proposition 8 works a grievous harm on the plaintiffs and other gay men and lesbians throughout California, and adds yet another chapter to the long history of discrimination they have suffered.
Third - Proposition 8 perpetrates this irreparable, immeasurable, discriminatory harm for no good reason.
The legal precedent (which, from my admittedly one law class, I discovered is possibly more important to the SCOTUS than the actual evidence of the case being tried):
+Brown v. Board of Education (separate is NOT equal, as applicable to domestic partnerships vs. marriage)
+Loving v. Virginia (ended anti-miscegenation laws based on Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause as cited by the Fourteenth Amendment, and also upheld that marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man.")
+Some SCOTUS case that I don't know the name of that granted convicted criminals the right to marry
+Zablocki v. Redhail (marriage is a constitutional right)
+Lawrence v. Texas that overturned the illegality of same-sex coupling (This is VERY IMPORTANT because I think this is the case where JUSTICE SCALIA even admits in his dissent that the next logical legal step after this ruling is to grant marriage equality).
+Romer v. Evans (Ruled that a Colorado anti-gay amendment was discriminatory, despite the fact that sexuality has not been ruled as a "suspect" class*. [*More on that later.])
[IF ANYBODY KNOWS THE NAME OF THE MISSING CASE OR ANY OTHER LEGAL PRECEDENT, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I recall reading about them, but I can't remember their names now.]
-Defendant-intervenor's trial strategy, as best I can parse it out from their tangential rambling and circular reasoning:
+That the defining purpose of marriage is for procreation, and since same-sex couples can't procreate, there's no reason for them to marry. (The judge responded to this argument by saying that the last marriage he performed was to a 92 year old man and an 86 year old woman, and he never asked them whether they planned to procreate before he wed them, so I think it's safe to say he's not going to be swayed on the absurdity of this argument.)
+Allowing same-sex couples to marry will result in a deinstitutionalization of marriage, which will an increase in non-married cohabitations as well as an in divorces, single parents, and non-cohabiting parents which will dissolve the enduring unions that are put in place to raise happy children. (God, I wish I was joking. They say this has already happened in the Netherlands.)
+Allowing same-sex couples to marry will result in an increase in bisexuality which will lead to group marriages. Once the defining purpose of marriage is changed to personal fulfillment and love as opposed to having children, then we "can't legally say to a bisexual who loves two people, one of each sex, that they don't have the same right to express their love." (Okay, putting aside their HIGHLY EGREGIOUS definition of bisexual, the implication is that by defining marriage as a form of personal fulfillment, that will lead to things like the legalization of polygamy, marriages to children, and then probably marriages to dogs or something. Again, god I wish I was joking.)
+That the traditional definition of marriage of "a man and woman" has been upheld by society forever and ever, amen, and we shouldn't go changing it. (Nevermind that there was polygamy in the Bible and it actually was the dominant form of marriage prior to modern Christianity, if I'm understanding Dr. Cott's testimony correctly.)
+That same-sex couples can be officially recognized by the state through domestic partnerships, and that's just as good as marriage (countered by Dr. Cott and Dr. Peplau's testimony)
+That gay men are promiscuous and therefore unfit for the monogamy of marriage (again countered by Dr. Peplau's testimony)
+That allowing same-sex marriages will harm heterosexual marriage. (However, when the judge asked the defendant-intervenor how EXACTLY it would harm heterosexual marriage his response was, AND I QUOTE: "I don't know.")
Legal precedent:
+ A GREAT WHOPPING PILE OF STEAMING BULLSHIT
+Dogmatic rhetoric
+The fact that as of yet, there has never been a ruling that has found sexuality to be a "suspect" class. A "suspect" category is something immutable such as race, making all of the above cases I cited under the plaintiff's legal precedent applicable. If it's not considered proven to the SCOTUS to be a "suspect" category, then we're SOL and up a creek with no paddle. The burden is on the plaintiffs to show "irrational basis" for the law (i.e. bigotry) while the defendant-intervenors just have to provide "rational basis" (believing they're upholding tradition, protecting children, etc.) The burden is on the plaintiffs to provide evidence linking all possible rationalizations back to bigotry as the sole cause. (Yes, WE know it's the sole cause, but the burden of PROOF lies with the plaintiffs, making it easy for the defendant-intervenors to wiggle out of this one.)
+And, unfortunately, a New York Supreme Court case that upheld that since opposite-sex couples can have accidental pregnancies out of wedlock, so the state had a "vested interest" in getting them hitched, while same-sex couples couldn't accidentally have children and so therefore the state had "less of a need" to expand marriage rights. (This is an example of the kind of "rational basis" that can be used to prop up a law without the ruling of sexuality as a "suspect" class.)
TRIAL SO FAR
-First day: Opening statements and testimony from all four plaintiffs
-Prior to trial, Judge Walker allowed it to be an evidentiary trial. I'm not really sure what this means, exactly, but I think it has something to do with a "trial of fact" (a matter for the courts) versus a "matter of law" (a democratic decision made by the voting public). By my understanding, marriage equality opponents know they stand a greater chance of losing at the trial level (possibly due to the legal precedent supporting marriage equality) so they wanted to push for a trial based on the legal precedent of the amendment than on the judiciary precedent, or something? All I know is that it's good for the plaintiffs, because it means they can present evidence of discrimination via things like expert witnesses, which is what the first three days of the trial have consisted of.
+1st expert witness: Professor Nancy Cott, Yale, Harvard, PhD in American Civilization, expert in history of marriage in America, key points of testimony: definition of marriage is fluid through time, changes as society changes, not the fixed social institution that defendant-intervenors argue, also many motivations for entering into marriage, not just procreation.
+2nd expert witness: Dr. George Chauncy, Yale, NYU, expert in history of gay Americans, key points of testimony: historical discrimination and criminalization of homosexuals, slander campaigns painting them as perverts out to seduce children, comparison of historical slander campaign "Save Our Children" by Anita Bryant in 1977 with the Prop 8 campaign message of "protecting our children" from homosexuality. Defendant-intervenors tried to imply that discrimination has historically lessened over time, and homosexuals have tons of rights now, and they even have domestic partnerships, so they should stop being such whiny babies about it. Also presented evidence showing how homosexuals have "beaten and harassed" proponents of Prop 8.
+3rd expert witness: Dr. Letitia Peplau, social psychologist from UCLA, expert in 4 areas of testimony: (a) marriage brings important benefits, (b) relationships between same-sex and heterosexual couples are similar, (c) gay couples who can marry have the same benefits, (d) gay marriage will not harm heterosexual marriage. Additional key points of testimony: gay couples prefer marriage over civil partnerships, are happier when married. Defendant-intervenors try to paint gay couples as unfaithful (using witness's report on data collected from the 70's) and don't care about marriage (using, imho, questionable data collected from the Netherlands) and also use same data to show "deinstitutionalization" of marriage in the Netherlands. Plaintiffs counter with data from Massachussetts showing decrease in divorce rates.
Okay, that's all I've got for now. I'll post another summary tonight giving the highlights of the fourth day of testimony, consisting of Dr. Eagan's testimony on the economic impact of same-sex marriage and hopefully a little commentary and analysis if I can find some.
ETA: I AM UNLOCKING THIS AND ALL POSTS DEALING WITH PROP 8, SO FEEL FREE TO PIMP AND SHARE.
This is a summary of the major events that have taken place in the first three days of the Prop 8 Trial. This is by no means a comprehensive list, and if anyone has anything to add or notices any mistakes I've made, please point them out! All of my previous posts on the subject, as well as some excellent outside reference articles, can be found under my Prop 8 Trial tag.
(Also, yes, this is long, but I tried to break it down into a mostly bullet-pointed list of key facts that are hopefully more readable than a giant essay.)
BACKGROUND
-I'm assuming most people know about Prop 8, but if not, here's a VERY SHORT crash course:
+California Supreme Court (SCOCA) ruled that gay marriage is legal
+Fundies got pissed off, passed Prop 8, which banned gay marriage (a couple examples of campaign ads which have been used in the trial as examples of fearmongering)
+Two homosexual couples sued the state, and the trial is expected to reach the SCOTUS. There has been opposition from people who believe it's too soon to take this to the national level, preferring the state-by-state approach to marriage equality. They believe that with the shifting demographic of more young people favoring marriage equality, patience will pay off in the end.
+There has also been support from people who believe that the state-by-state democratic process has failed, and who believe that there is a better historic precedent from the courts to grant civil rights than from the democratic process. They believe that the state-by-state method is too slow, and that they shouldn't have to wait to be granted their constitutional rights.
+One of the main risks with this case, among many others, is that if this case fails it may be a decade or more before the SCOTUS decides to hear a similar case again. There is also the fact that courts are an historically conservative institution which rarely will make a decision without the backing of majority public opinion. However, there is also significant legal precedent in favor of the case, as well as the shifting demographic of public opinion as mentioned above.
-Here's a list of the major players, stolen shamelessly from prop8trialtracker.com:
+Perry v. Schwarzenegger: the formal name of this case. Perry is one of the plaintiffs. Officially as Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the defendant, but he and the Attorney General, Jerry Brown have refused to defend Prop 8, believing it to be unconstitutional. Instead, ProtectMarriage.org (the Yes on 8 campaign) are the main defendants*. [*They are intervening on behalf of the CA governor and Attorney General, so they are therefore called the defendant-intervenors, instead of defendants.] The trial is being heard in the federal District Court.
+Judge Vaughn Walker: is Chief Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and is the presiding judge for the trial. He was nominated to the bench by Ronald Regan and has been the chief judge since 2004.
+Ted Olson: former solicitor general, who has argued in front of the Supreme Court on a number of occasions, most famously on the winning side of Bush v Gore. He is one of the preeminent conservative lawyers in the country. He will be arguing for the plaintiffs, supporting marriage equality.
+David Boies: was on the opposing side of Olson for Bush v. Gore. Much like Olson, though on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum, Boies is an extremely well-respected lawyer with lots of experience arguing in front of the Supreme Court. He and Olson are long time friends.
+American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER): The non-profit organization founded by Chad Griffin and Bruce Cohen which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs.
+ProtectMarrage.com: formerly the “Yes on 8″ campaign, the organization has evolved into an advocacy group and are acting as the primary defendants.
+Ron Prentice: former Yes on 8 chairman who now serves at the Executive Director for ProtectMarriage.com, which is leading the defense.
+Paul Katami, Jeffrey Zarillo, Kristin Perry and Sandra Steir: the four plaintiffs, two committed couples who are not permitted to wed under current California law. All of them testified on the first day of the trial. [Here is a biography about the plaintiffs.]
+Andy Pugno: ProtectMarriage.com chief legal counsel and current candidate for the Assembly.
[Additional nonplayer: Hak-Shing William "Bill" Tam, who was one of the people responsible for putting Prop 8 on the ballot and an official defendant-intervenor, has officially withdrawn from the case because he "fears for his personal safety" and "doesn't like the discovery process" which basically consists of the lawyers poking around his personal communications and asking hard questions, like why he didn't think gays and lesbians had the right to marry. A quote from Tam's public correspondence that was used during the trial: This November, San Francisco voters will vote on a ballot to “legalize prostitution”. This is put forth by the SF city government, which is under the rule of homosexuals. They lose no time in pushing the gay agenda - after legalizing same-sex marriage, they want to legalize prostitution. What will be next? On their agenda list is: legalize having sex with children. I hope we all wake up now and really work to pass Prop 8.]
-Judge Walker decided to allow taping of the trial with delayed upload to youtube.
+Defendant-intervenors opposed this on the basis that "irreparable harm" (yeah, right) would be done to the defendant-intervenors and their witnesses for testifying. SCOTUS, stupidly, decided in a 5-4 vote to ban cameras indefinitely for the trial. All SCOTUS decisions record both the reasoning behind the decision, as well as the reasoning behind the dissent. In the 17-page decision (which I think is about average sized) Justice Breyer had this to say in his dissent:
Then, on December 31, the Court revised its public notice to ask for comments directly. By January 8, 2010, the Court had received 138,574 comments, all but 32 of which favored transmitting the proceedings.
There was also sufficient “opportunity for comment.” The parties, the intervenors, other judges, the public-all had an opportunity to comment. The parties were specifically invited by Chief Judge Walker to comment on the possibility of broadcast as early as September. And the entire public was invited by the District Court to submit comments after the rule change was announced, right up to the eve of trial. As I said, the court received 138,574 comments during that time. How much more “opportunity for comment” does the Court believe necessary, particularly when the statutes themselves authorize the local court to put a new rule into effect “without” receiving any “comments” before doing so when that local “court determines that there is an immediate need” to do so (and to receive comments later)? And more importantly, what is the legal source of the Court’s demand for additional comment time in respect to a rule change to conform to Judicial Council policy?
Here's the NYT article about the decision.
STRATEGIES
-Plaintiff's trial strategy, as described by Ted Olsen's opening statement:
In the words of the California Supreme Court, eliminating the right of individuals to marry a same-sex partner relegated those individuals to “second class” citizenship, and told them, their families and their neighbors that their love and desire for a sanctioned marital partnership was not worthy of recognition.
During this trial, Plaintiffs and leading experts in the fields of history, psychology, economics and political science will prove three fundamental points:
First - Marriage is vitally important in American society.
Second - By denying gay men and lesbians the right to marry, Proposition 8 works a grievous harm on the plaintiffs and other gay men and lesbians throughout California, and adds yet another chapter to the long history of discrimination they have suffered.
Third - Proposition 8 perpetrates this irreparable, immeasurable, discriminatory harm for no good reason.
The legal precedent (which, from my admittedly one law class, I discovered is possibly more important to the SCOTUS than the actual evidence of the case being tried):
+Brown v. Board of Education (separate is NOT equal, as applicable to domestic partnerships vs. marriage)
+Loving v. Virginia (ended anti-miscegenation laws based on Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause as cited by the Fourteenth Amendment, and also upheld that marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man.")
+Some SCOTUS case that I don't know the name of that granted convicted criminals the right to marry
+Zablocki v. Redhail (marriage is a constitutional right)
+Lawrence v. Texas that overturned the illegality of same-sex coupling (This is VERY IMPORTANT because I think this is the case where JUSTICE SCALIA even admits in his dissent that the next logical legal step after this ruling is to grant marriage equality).
+Romer v. Evans (Ruled that a Colorado anti-gay amendment was discriminatory, despite the fact that sexuality has not been ruled as a "suspect" class*. [*More on that later.])
[IF ANYBODY KNOWS THE NAME OF THE MISSING CASE OR ANY OTHER LEGAL PRECEDENT, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I recall reading about them, but I can't remember their names now.]
-Defendant-intervenor's trial strategy, as best I can parse it out from their tangential rambling and circular reasoning:
+That the defining purpose of marriage is for procreation, and since same-sex couples can't procreate, there's no reason for them to marry. (The judge responded to this argument by saying that the last marriage he performed was to a 92 year old man and an 86 year old woman, and he never asked them whether they planned to procreate before he wed them, so I think it's safe to say he's not going to be swayed on the absurdity of this argument.)
+Allowing same-sex couples to marry will result in a deinstitutionalization of marriage, which will an increase in non-married cohabitations as well as an in divorces, single parents, and non-cohabiting parents which will dissolve the enduring unions that are put in place to raise happy children. (God, I wish I was joking. They say this has already happened in the Netherlands.)
+Allowing same-sex couples to marry will result in an increase in bisexuality which will lead to group marriages. Once the defining purpose of marriage is changed to personal fulfillment and love as opposed to having children, then we "can't legally say to a bisexual who loves two people, one of each sex, that they don't have the same right to express their love." (Okay, putting aside their HIGHLY EGREGIOUS definition of bisexual, the implication is that by defining marriage as a form of personal fulfillment, that will lead to things like the legalization of polygamy, marriages to children, and then probably marriages to dogs or something. Again, god I wish I was joking.)
+That the traditional definition of marriage of "a man and woman" has been upheld by society forever and ever, amen, and we shouldn't go changing it. (Nevermind that there was polygamy in the Bible and it actually was the dominant form of marriage prior to modern Christianity, if I'm understanding Dr. Cott's testimony correctly.)
+That same-sex couples can be officially recognized by the state through domestic partnerships, and that's just as good as marriage (countered by Dr. Cott and Dr. Peplau's testimony)
+That gay men are promiscuous and therefore unfit for the monogamy of marriage (again countered by Dr. Peplau's testimony)
+That allowing same-sex marriages will harm heterosexual marriage. (However, when the judge asked the defendant-intervenor how EXACTLY it would harm heterosexual marriage his response was, AND I QUOTE: "I don't know.")
Legal precedent:
+ A GREAT WHOPPING PILE OF STEAMING BULLSHIT
+Dogmatic rhetoric
+The fact that as of yet, there has never been a ruling that has found sexuality to be a "suspect" class. A "suspect" category is something immutable such as race, making all of the above cases I cited under the plaintiff's legal precedent applicable. If it's not considered proven to the SCOTUS to be a "suspect" category, then we're SOL and up a creek with no paddle. The burden is on the plaintiffs to show "irrational basis" for the law (i.e. bigotry) while the defendant-intervenors just have to provide "rational basis" (believing they're upholding tradition, protecting children, etc.) The burden is on the plaintiffs to provide evidence linking all possible rationalizations back to bigotry as the sole cause. (Yes, WE know it's the sole cause, but the burden of PROOF lies with the plaintiffs, making it easy for the defendant-intervenors to wiggle out of this one.)
+And, unfortunately, a New York Supreme Court case that upheld that since opposite-sex couples can have accidental pregnancies out of wedlock, so the state had a "vested interest" in getting them hitched, while same-sex couples couldn't accidentally have children and so therefore the state had "less of a need" to expand marriage rights. (This is an example of the kind of "rational basis" that can be used to prop up a law without the ruling of sexuality as a "suspect" class.)
TRIAL SO FAR
-First day: Opening statements and testimony from all four plaintiffs
-Prior to trial, Judge Walker allowed it to be an evidentiary trial. I'm not really sure what this means, exactly, but I think it has something to do with a "trial of fact" (a matter for the courts) versus a "matter of law" (a democratic decision made by the voting public). By my understanding, marriage equality opponents know they stand a greater chance of losing at the trial level (possibly due to the legal precedent supporting marriage equality) so they wanted to push for a trial based on the legal precedent of the amendment than on the judiciary precedent, or something? All I know is that it's good for the plaintiffs, because it means they can present evidence of discrimination via things like expert witnesses, which is what the first three days of the trial have consisted of.
+1st expert witness: Professor Nancy Cott, Yale, Harvard, PhD in American Civilization, expert in history of marriage in America, key points of testimony: definition of marriage is fluid through time, changes as society changes, not the fixed social institution that defendant-intervenors argue, also many motivations for entering into marriage, not just procreation.
+2nd expert witness: Dr. George Chauncy, Yale, NYU, expert in history of gay Americans, key points of testimony: historical discrimination and criminalization of homosexuals, slander campaigns painting them as perverts out to seduce children, comparison of historical slander campaign "Save Our Children" by Anita Bryant in 1977 with the Prop 8 campaign message of "protecting our children" from homosexuality. Defendant-intervenors tried to imply that discrimination has historically lessened over time, and homosexuals have tons of rights now, and they even have domestic partnerships, so they should stop being such whiny babies about it. Also presented evidence showing how homosexuals have "beaten and harassed" proponents of Prop 8.
+3rd expert witness: Dr. Letitia Peplau, social psychologist from UCLA, expert in 4 areas of testimony: (a) marriage brings important benefits, (b) relationships between same-sex and heterosexual couples are similar, (c) gay couples who can marry have the same benefits, (d) gay marriage will not harm heterosexual marriage. Additional key points of testimony: gay couples prefer marriage over civil partnerships, are happier when married. Defendant-intervenors try to paint gay couples as unfaithful (using witness's report on data collected from the 70's) and don't care about marriage (using, imho, questionable data collected from the Netherlands) and also use same data to show "deinstitutionalization" of marriage in the Netherlands. Plaintiffs counter with data from Massachussetts showing decrease in divorce rates.
Okay, that's all I've got for now. I'll post another summary tonight giving the highlights of the fourth day of testimony, consisting of Dr. Eagan's testimony on the economic impact of same-sex marriage and hopefully a little commentary and analysis if I can find some.
ETA: I AM UNLOCKING THIS AND ALL POSTS DEALING WITH PROP 8, SO FEEL FREE TO PIMP AND SHARE.