Dr. Meyer at the Prop 8 Trial: Stigma and effects on gays and lesbians

[rhythmia]

Parts one and two here.

Reading these two parts of the liveblogging, and then the *comments*, goodness the comments. It's making me want to cry.

Dr. Ilan H. Meyer, Associate Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health is up. He will testify about the stigma and prejudice gay and lesbians

Comments

[flange5]

I'm so happy you shared the link to the trial blog&hearts

And can I say how much Dr. Meyer is becoming my hero? He's so amazing in his clear answers to difficult questions, and I wanted to cheer every time he countered the defense's attempts to oversimplify with a clear but nuanced response which somehow through into stark relief just how manipulative the defense's wording was attempting to be. Yay for clearly pointing out disingenuous questioning \o/

And I agree--the commenters are really effective in modeling actual conversation and debate in a respectful way which never gets away from the sheer human impact and stakes of the trial. I'm so glad that this exists, even if I think the legal arguments for the lack of cameras are . . . shall we say, problematic, flimsy and ill-advised? Also, a terrible precedent.

[rhythmia]

yeah, I was seriously surprised. I think I'm too jaded and cynical from the expectation of what commenting on the internet looks like, because for most people anonymity=free license to be a bigoted jackass on display. >.> It was amazing that some people who clearly came from one of the other websites were generally responded to in a respectful manner, and there was always someone shooting down the hotheads who wanted to spam the pro-8 site and representatives.

I was reading through some other peoples' analyses, and the lack of cameras thing apparently has legal precedent. And some the people currently on the Supreme Court have heebie-jeebies about cameras. But I definitely think it's a bad idea, because this is freaking homosexuality on trial here, and having the witnesses like Helen Zia being on camera for people to see would put a human face on this case. Which, yanno, pro-8 side doesn't want. Dur

[flange5]

I saw that conversation and now wish I read German to see the differences between the posts ^^;;

But yeah, I totally didn't expect the level of civility I saw in the comments because, I generally find this to be true