Today, we confirmed that Prop8 was a deeply manipulative campaign, that had everything to do with nothing that marriage advocates profess to their faithful.
The rightwing blogosphere seems uninterested, in covering this now open duplicity; the mainstream media, not ready yet to call church leaders two-faced.
If Wall Street can put 'BUY' recommendations on stocks they call POS in private e-mails, then the Catholic hierarchy, the LDS, and the Evangelical mobs reserve the right to lie, smear, and distort in the name of the Lord, I guess, protected by the First Amendment.
CD: Should be state of mind. But also if Mr. Brown [director of NOM] thinks he has to run messages by Mr. Schubert, very important.
The Prop8 team put their first witness, Professor Miller, on the stand to ask just three-dozen questions or so. This shows how simple they really view their case to be.
Basically, their "expert" got on the stand to say three things:
- First, that "No on 8" had money, that the democratic party has power in the state, that gay-friendly corporations donated, that some religious groups phonebanked, or whatever, and that gays had access to politicians.
- Second, that, in California at least, gays and lesbians had not always lost at the ballot box. This is the counterfactual for which he was primed to testify, I suspect. The '78 Briggs initiative (no homo teachers) and the '86/'88 measures to quarantine those with HIV and Prop 102, related to HIV+ public disclosure by health professionals.
- Third, that the general trend was toward less discrimination for LGBT. No supporting research - just pointing to LGBT publications.
This will be the core of the case.
Providing intellectual cover for the bigots, Blankenhorn may bring the "rational" fear for the institution and to poke fun at everyone's definition of the meaning of marriage in days to come. In contradiction of the American Anthropological Association, Blankenhorn has written that denial of relationship recognition for gay or lesbian couples cannot be analogized to anti-miscegenation and that, accordingly, 'freedom to marry' is a nonsensical concept if applied to gays and lesbians. ('Freedom of choice' and 'freedom to marry' are phrases from the landmark Loving trial).
After that, Miller's testimony was an utter Mess, but the first two points did not seem to be directly impeached (waiting on final transcript).
He contradicted himself by testifying that Schwarzenegger had vetoed a marriage bill twice, but that he would likely sign one. (waiting on final transcript)
Finally, Boies got him to blast the referendum process, as follows:
Boies: The first sentence reads that by limiting opportunities for the proponent to … initiative system makes compromise less necessary.” This is what M wrote in 2004.
Miller: I agree with this.
B: Reads: By allowing proponents (of initiatives) to eschew compromise, initiative system leads to polarization. You wrote that?
M: Yes.
B: Do you believe it to be true?
M: More or less, yes.
B: Last full sentence: thus in CA, both initiative const amendments and statutes undermine the authority of representative government. What did you mean there by representative government?
M: I’ll have to recall… In general I meant that initiatives have the tendency to make it more difficult to do its job, for example by locking in spending mandates or other things. Fair characterization of my views on this.
Miller: I agree with this.
B: Reads: By allowing proponents (of initiatives) to eschew compromise, initiative system leads to polarization. You wrote that?
M: Yes.
B: Do you believe it to be true?
M: More or less, yes.
B: Last full sentence: thus in CA, both initiative const amendments and statutes undermine the authority of representative government. What did you mean there by representative government?
M: I’ll have to recall… In general I meant that initiatives have the tendency to make it more difficult to do its job, for example by locking in spending mandates or other things. Fair characterization of my views on this.
Thanks to RJ and CC for liveblog.
