miriku.com

so having read the (138 page) prop 8 judgement, it’s as much as a slaughter as the trial was. the defense basically failed to present a case. i’m not even saying they presented badly, i mean they literally had no case. they had two witnesses, one of whom was discredit and his testimony not allowed, and the other only talked about gay rights in a political power sense. absolutely no testimony was entered into record saying that gay marriage will hurt straight marriage, children, or society.

it’s pretty much the perfect scenario for gay rights. they got upheld on every point, the judge found in their favor both on equal rights and due process of law basis, and no matter which way district 9 rules, it’ll go to the supreme court where a 5-4 in their favor is likely.

in fact, the best thing for the anti-gays to do right now, strategically, is to not appeal. i’m hoping their pride will blind them. in fact, i’m sorta expecting it.

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addendum: oh, but the anti-gays did have one of their experts testify that if “prop 8 is overturned, one by one the states will fall into satan’s hands”. so that’s gonna go well with the “this isn’t religious bigotry” argument

just a series of facts i picked up from reading the summaries of the proceedings (this is not a summary of the trial)

- george washington was sterile. this made him a more popular choice for president since he couldn’t have a “dynasty”

- old testament jews practiced legal polygamy

- as part of the “not legal be gay in public”, people were arrested for having too long or too short hair, pretending to dance with someone of the same sex, and in one case, for being two men discussing opera.

- from the above, gender roles used to be enforced by the government

- for a period of time if an american woman married an asian she would have her citizenship revoked, and not gain the husbands. since asian men were never allowed to gain citizenship, the wives became effectively stateless

- from the above, marriage was and is used by the government as a punitive measure to enforce 2nd class status

- till 1975 federal government was not allowed to hire homosexuals for state posts

- the vatican is on record saying “Allowing children being adopted by gay couples would do violence to these children. Their condition of dependency would stunt their full human development”. this implies that in the eyes of the catholic church homosexuals are inferior and not ‘full humans’

one thing i did know but want to reiterate: it’s amazing how blatant it is that “protect” is a fake word. protect children, protect marriage. that word has a specific meaning: you ‘protect’ from evil, you ‘protect’ from criminals, you don’t ‘protect’ from learning about someone else who you respect and value as a fellow human being

it’s also very telling that prop 8, the anti-gays, are actively attempting to block the inclusion of pro-prop 8 ads, including ones they themselves wrote and shot. almost like they are ashamed of them (legally, speaking of course)