»» Columnists

SCOTUS Blocks Proposition 8 Trial YouTubes . . . For Now

by Michael Triplett | 1:05 pm, January 11th, 2010

» 9 comments

The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order this morning blocking the recording of the trial challenging Proposition 8, set to begin in a SanFrancisco courtroom today, until it has a chance to consider the issue. The hold on video being placed on YouTube is until Wednesday. Supporters of Proposition 8 had challenged the broadcasting of the trial, suggesting that witnesses and counsel could face intimidation from same-sex marriage backers. The high-profile trial got the full media treatment this weekend, with stories about the trial in the New Yorker and Newsweek.

Veteran Supreme Court reporter Lyle Denniston, at SCOTUSblog, says the order also means there will be no broadcasts of the trial into courthouses beyond the federal courthouse in San Francisco. But he says the decision to review the question does not necessarily spell doom for broadcasting the trial.

The order not only blocks the trial judge’s original order permitting delayed broadcast of the trial proceedings, but also ”any additional order permitting broadcast of the proceedings,” pending further action by the Justices. In his brief dissent, Justice Breyer said he was not persuaded that the supporters of Prop. 8, who sought to block any televising of the trial, would suffer harm from such broacasts.

The fact that the Court will take more time to consider the issue is an indication that the broadcasting may yet be allowed. But the mere fact that it has imposed even a temporary delay would not appear to be an encouraging sign for the prospect that the video will be seen outside the courthouse.

Ed Whelan at the National Review’s Bench Memos, who has called the legal challenge a “show trial,” has the full text of the order. While there is no broadcasting of the first days of the trial–and tweeps have been blocked from accessing the trial outside of the trial–live tweeting of the trial is being done by @TheAdvocateMag , @AmerEqualRights and @ACLU_norcal.

Proposition 8, Supreme Court

Snipzor

What a load of crap, everyone knows that intimidation from people on the internet is totally invalid, why would the Supreme Court listen to the assholes who repeatedly lied and intimidated their way in getting it passed in the first place? Absolutely ridiculous.
http://www.uselessbeauty.com Vidiot

Given SCOTUS’s phobia of cameras in courtrooms, don’t expect to see the Prop 8 trial anytime soon. I just wonder if there’s any overlap between the people who run the sites listing the home addresses of doctors who provide abortions and the people who want to keep their support of Prop 8 secret so as not to be targeted by intimidating anti-Prop-8-ers.
ImNotBlue

I bet the trial goes ahead on YouTube… just as soon as all the “dealings” for Obama-care go ahead on C-SPAN.

Hmmm.
http://lnsmitheeblog.blogspot.com LNSmithee

Snipzor wrote:

What a load of crap, everyone knows that intimidation from people on the internet is totally invalid,

John Diaz, editorial editor of a major newspaper, disagrees with you, Snipzor.

From November 23, 2008:

A supporter of Proposition 8, fed up with what he believed was the gay community’s and “liberal media’s” refusal to accept the voters’ verdict, fired off a letter to the editor.

“Please show respect for democracy,” he wrote, in a letter we published.

What he encountered instead was an utter lack of respect for free speech.

Within hours, the intimidation game was on. Because his real name and city were listed – a condition for publication of letters to [this newspaper] – opponents of Prop. 8 used Internet search engines to find the letter writer’s small business, his Web site (which included the names of his children and dog), his phone number and his clients. And they posted that information in the “Comments” section of [our paper's website]- urging, in ugly language, retribution against the author’s business and its identified clients.

“They’re intimidating people that don’t have the same beliefs as they do … so they’ll be silenced,” he told me last week. “It doesn’t bode well for the free-speech process. People are going to have to be pretty damn courageous to speak up about anything. Why would anyone want to go through this?”

Let the record show that I absolutely disagree with the letter writer on the substance of Prop. 8. I believe that same-sex couples should have the full rights and responsibilities of marriage. In my view, the discrimination inherent in Prop. 8 is morally and legally indefensible in a society where the concept of equal protection is supposed to safeguard the rights of the minority.

But let me also say that I am disturbed by the vicious, highly personalized attacks against the letter writer and others. Protesters have shouted insults at people headed to worship; temples and churches have been defaced. “Blacklists” of donors who contributed to Yes on 8 are circulating on the Internet, and even small-time donors are being confronted. A Palo Alto dentist lost two patients as a result of his $1,000 donation. The artistic director of the California Musical Theatre resigned to spare the organization from a fast-developing boycott. Scott Eckern, the artistic director of the Sacramento theater group and a Mormon, had given $1,000 to Yes on 8.

This out-of-scale attempt to isolate and intimidate decidedly small players in the Yes on 8 campaign is no way to win the issue in a court of law or the court of public opinion …

Diaz goes on to criticize intimidation efforts on behalf of the anti-SSM crowd, which isn’t nearly as intense and personal.

Oh, the newspaper that Diaz serves as Editorial Editor? The San Francisco Chronicle.

why would the Supreme Court listen to the assholes who repeatedly lied and intimidated their way in getting it passed in the first place? Absolutely ridiculous.

I’d LOVE to see your examples of “lies and intimidation” used to get Prop 8 passed.
Pat Doherty

Good
Snipzor

Examples of lies and intimidation from the Prop 8 campaign? How about lying to vulnerable stupid parents and bigots that schools with have to teach about “gay marriage” (A claim filled with such blatant bigotry it makes me sick). How about lying to the religious libertarian that churches will lose their tax exempt status? How about the obvious lie that they don’t discriminate against gays and lesbians?

Well done Smithee. Intellectual dishonesty at its best.
http://lnsmitheeblog.blogspot.com LNSmithee

Snipzor wrote:

Examples of lies and intimidation from the Prop 8 campaign?

How about lying to vulnerable stupid parents and bigots that schools with have to teach about “gay marriage” (A claim filled with such blatant bigotry it makes me sick).

That was the truth, Snip.

How about lying to the religious libertarian that churches will lose their tax exempt status?

That was also true — or at least, that’s what radical gay politicos and activists were promising they would accomplish as far back as 1999.Then-San Francisco Supervisor Mark Leno threatened the LDS Church with the possible revocation of its tax-exempt status for coming out too strongly in favor of what was known as The Knight Initiative, a proposed ballot measure defining marriage in California as being exclusively one man-one woman. The petitions were more than enough to make the ballot in 2000 as Proposition 22 and passed with 61% of the vote before the CA Supreme Court briefly overturned it.

Leno is currently a State Senator and chairman of two committees. His views and tactics have not been moderated one bit.

How about the obvious lie that they don’t discriminate against gays and lesbians?

I don’t know what you are referring to specifically (or, as Ted would say, pacifically). Whatever you mean, I don’t know how that could be “intimidation.”
Snipzor

Smithee, if you cite the group that funded the campaign, it only makes you look like a joke, an asshole, and a complete idiot. Same goes for when you cite something completely irrelevant as being connected with the gay marriage debate.

Good god you are absolutely bloody ridiculous. Why not put in the Argumentum Ad Populum fallacy. Oh wait you did.
http://lnsmitheeblog.blogspot.com LNSmithee

Snippy whined:

Smithee, if you cite the group that funded the campaign, it only makes you look like a joke, an asshole, and a complete idiot. Same goes for when you cite something completely irrelevant as being connected with the gay marriage debate.

Good god you are absolutely bloody ridiculous. Why not put in the Argumentum Ad Populum fallacy. Oh wait you did.

(Yawwwn… ) Are you finished?

You said that Prop 8 passed due to “lies and intimidation.” What actual examples did you provide in saying so? NONE. I gave you two examples showing what you said were lies were true, and you came back at me citing … NOTHING.

So go wherever it is you need to go to find evidence that what the Prop 8 people said is wrong — if same-sex marriage was made legal in California, all California public schools that teach sex ed (96%) would be bound to “teach gay marriage” to schoolchildren if they wanted to be in compliance with California law. Go wherever it is you need to go to show that gay activists have sworn not to go after the tax-exempt status of religious organizations (including established churches) if they encourage their congregants to take action. Meanwhile, I got something. You’ve got NOTHING.

Couple that with the fact that in that period when gay marriage was allowed, a lesbian teacher took her charter school class to her wedding to her girlfriend at San Francisco City Hall.

From October 11, 2008′s San Francisco Chronicle (neutral enough for ya? Bold mine):

A group of San Francisco first-graders took an unusual field trip to City Hall on Friday to toss rose petals on their just-married lesbian teacher – putting the public school children at the center of a fierce election battle over the fate of same-sex marriage.

The 18 Creative Arts Charter School students took a Muni bus and walked a block at noon to toss rose petals and blow bubbles on their just-married teacher Erin Carder and her wife Kerri McCoy, giggling and squealing as they mobbed their teacher with hugs.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, a friend of a friend, officiated.

A parent came up with the idea for the field trip – a surprise for the teacher on her wedding day.

“She’s such a dedicated teacher,” said the school’s interim director Liz Jaroflow.

But there was a question of justifying the field trip academically. Jaroflow decided she could.

“It really is what we call a teachable moment,” Jaroflow said, noting the historic significance of same-sex marriage and related civil rights issues. “I think I’m well within the parameters.”

(snip)

Creative Arts administrators and parents acknowledged that the field trip might be controversial, but they didn’t see the big deal. Same-sex marriage is legal, they noted.

Put on top of that the dismissal of the suit of Massachusetts when two parents objected to gay marriage being taught to their second grader.

None of those accounts were made up. Those things actually happened. All the Yes on 8 people did was show what’s already going on to the greater public, and it made the decision on its own. No “lies.” No “intimidation.”

Maybe in your parallel universe a statement is instantly disproved because it comes from the position’s proponents. I live on Planet Earth, where you’ve got to do better than that if you want to call it a “lie.”