I highly suggest that you take a look at this website. It's live blogging from the Prop 8 Trial currently taking place. I've learned a lot about law and its application in this country from reading this. I am making it a goal of mine to read the transcript everyday.
Some of the testimonies are very interesting, and I will be posting the best ones on this blog.
5 comments:
You are right, tis well fascinating. I have made it a point to read every day. What confuses me is how little of a fight the pro prop 8 people are putting up. The historian was very interesting, but listening to Helen Zia's testimony was heart wrenching.
The less than energetic fight by the pro prop 8 side is likely a result of lacking any rational argument outside of "we don't know what could happen therefore we shouldn't try anything new"(despite the fact that there are gay marriages in some states and around the world that have not shown any negative impact on society or traditional marriages...) and "please look at the study from the 1950's that has been repeatedly refuted by modern research, because it is obvious the modern researchers are just all biased and politically motivated so we should only listen to these outdated studies..." Oh yeah, and did I mention "procreation, surely we will die out as a species if we allow gays to marry. I mean, all these bigoted straight people would immediately forget that they consider gay marriage to be repulsive and go get one themselves, because that makes perfect sense..."
All in all, I would say we are looking very good at this point. The pro prop 8 arguments just don't hold any water, and I suspect their lawyers are fully aware of it. This trial has little affect anyway. What matters is what happens when it is appealed to the SCOTUS, and how Justice Anthony Kennedy decides to rule...
I don't think Prop 8 has called any witnesses yet, so we haven't really had a chance to see what their points are. So far, they've only been cross-examining witnesses for the plaintiff. Their tactic has been to show that the witnesses are all biased and unreliable.
We have already seen what their points are in their opening statement. The following are their main points:
1. The limitation of marriage to a man and a woman has been universal, across time and culture.
2. Marriage’s central, defining purpose is to promote procreation within stable unions.
3. Too much about the effects of same-sex marriage is unknown to risk harming the institution.
4. Changing marriage will lead to social harms.
5. Voters, not courts, should decide whether to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.
Although we have yet to see how they flesh out their argument through their own witnesses, I cannot conceive of any legitimate way they can strongly support their case. Any expert they call, among those who haven't backed out, will collapse under cross-examination not merely on grounds of bias (as they have been attempting to do with our witnesses), but simply because they will have no choice but to state what the research states within its proper context, and none of the research supports their claims (unless they dig up old and refuted research or non-peer-reviewed bogus from NARTH and the likes...), but I don't believe the judge would go for that. I do not think the defense will be able to come anywhere close to providing reasonable rationale for prohibiting gay marriage, and because of the way Judge Walker has chosen to shape the facts of this case by taking a greater attitude of scrutiny towards the reasoning behind prop 8 than previous judges, I am fairly confident that the outcome will favor us. Judge Walker seems to be looking beyond what previous justices have looked at, and if the plaintiffs can show that heterosexism, rather than legitimate societal concerns, are behind the passage of prop 8, I believe he will have no choice but to overturn it as unconstitutional. In what conceivable way can the defendants go about showing that prop 8 was not motivated by ignorance, malice, intolerance? I just don't see a single one, but maybe I am missing something.
Post a Comment