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CA: Prop 8 Supporters Ask Judge to Invalidate 18,000 Marriages

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

As the trial over California’s prohibition on same-sex marriage enters its final stage Wednesday, the ban’s sponsors are urging the judge to go a step further and revoke state recognition of the marriages of 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who wed before voters passed Proposition 8.

Such an order would honor “the expressed will of the people,” backers of the November 2008 ballot measure said Tuesday in their final written filing before Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker.

Andrew Pugno, an attorney for Prop. 8′s backers, said in an interview that the sponsors aren’t asking Walker to nullify the 18,000 marriages, but only to rule that government agencies, courts and businesses no longer have to recognize the couples as married.

Full Story from SF Gate

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Tags: federal trial, Gay Marriage, invalidate, marriage equality, nullify, prop 8, proposition 8, same sex marriage

CA: Judge Walker Prepares Questions for Prop 8 Trial Closing Arguments

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

The federal judge presiding over a trial on California’s Proposition 8 issued a list today of 39 wide-ranging questions to be answered in closing arguments in San Francisco next week.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker is conducting a nonjury trial on a lawsuit in which two couples contend that Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban enacted by state voters in 2008, is unconstitutional. The trial is the nation’s first on a U.S. constitutional challenge to a prohibition on gay marriage.

Walker heard two and a half weeks of testimony in January and has scheduled a daylong hearing on closing arguments on June 16. The queries posed by Walker cover all sides and angles of the case on topics ranging from voter intent and the role of churches in the 2008 election campaign to the definition and purpose of marriage.

Full Story from SF Appeal

Click here for gay marriage resources in California.

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Tags: closing arguments, federal trial, Gay Marriage, Judge walker, marriage equality, prop 8, proposition 8, same sex marriage

CA: Prop 8 Supporters Say Televising Arguments Might Make Judge Rule Against Them

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

The sponsors of California’s ban on same-sex marriage asked a federal judge in San Francisco today to refuse to allow a broadcast of closing arguments on whether the measure is constitutional. The closing arguments in a lawsuit challenging the voter-approved Proposition 8 are tentatively scheduled for June 16 in the court of U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker.

Charles Cooper, a lawyer for the Proposition 8 sponsors, argued in a letter to Walker that a U.S. Supreme Court order blocking televising of the testimony portion of the trial in January should also apply to the closing arguments.

Cooper wrote that possible negative effects of broadcasting on judges and lawyers include “distraction, grandstanding and avoidance of unpopular decisions or positions.” The letter asks that a request by 12 media organizations to broadcast the arguments should be “promptly rejected.”

Full Story from NBC Bay Area

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Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Response »
Tags: broadcast, closing arguments, federal trial, Gay Marriage, marriage equality, prop 8, proposition 8, same sex marriage

Like to Act? Support Marriage Equality? Check Out “Testimony: Equality on Trial”

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

Want to test your acting chops as one of the attorneys defending Proposition 8, California’s gay marriage ban? How about one of the gay plaintiffs cross-examined during last January’s federal courtroom drama in San Francisco?

Now is your chance, with “Testimony: Equality on Trial,” a project started by the Courage Campaign, an anti-Proposition 8 activist organization.

The idea, the group says, is to get people interested in taking a close read of the courtroom drama that took place last January and ends June 16 with closing arguments. Two gay couples filed suit against Proposition 8, contending it violates their federal rights to equal protection.

Full Story from the Sacramento Bee

Click here for gay marriage resources in California.

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Tags: courage campaign, federal trial, Gay Marriage, marriage equality, prop 8, proposition 8, same sex marriage, testimony: equality on trial, transcripts

CA: George Rekers’ Ties to Prop 8 Trial

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Baptist minister and clinical psychologist George Rekers has devoted himself to “curing” homosexuality, co-founded the far-right Family Research Council, and “played a significant role in many of the ugliest assaults on gay people and their civil rights over the last three decades.” Most recently, this anti-gay zealot became infamous for getting caught at the Miami International Airport with a “rent boy.” The male escort, Jo-vanni Roman, said that he gave Rekers “nude ‘sexual’ massages” every day during their two-week trip to London and Madrid.

Since then, Rekers has been causing all sorts of awkwardness for the Republicans, who have heartily embraced him in the past. Rekers, for example, was Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum’s (R) star witness in a case arguing why same-sex couples are unfit to adopt children. Rekers may even be a problem in cases where he didn’t testify. Today, the New York Times reports on his role in the high-profile challenge to California’s marriage equality ban:

Dr. Rekers did not testify in that case, but his views, in the form of a declaration filed in a previous case, were cited in the documents prepared for trial by two men initially identified as expert witnesses. (Only one, David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values, testified.) The question of whether sexual orientation could be altered through therapy was also discussed extensively in court.

Full Story from Think Progress

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Tags: broadcast, closing arguments, federal case, federal trial, Gay Marriage, george rekers, marriage equality, prop 8, proposition 8, rent boyproposition 8, same sex marriage

CA: Media Organizations Sue for Right to Broadcast Prop 8 Trial Final Arguments

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

A bid to broadcast part of a historic same-sex marriage trial resurfaced in federal court in San Francisco Tuesday. A group of 12 media organizations formally asked U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to allow cameras in the courtroom for the final arguments in a lawsuit challenging Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved ban on gay and lesbian marriage.

Attorney Thomas Burke wrote that the organizations, known as the Media Coalition, are interested in “recording, broadcasting and webcasting the closing arguments.” The arguments are tentatively scheduled for June 16.

Testimony in the nonjury trial was heard by Walker in January and was not televised because the U.S. Supreme Court blocked a broadcast plan by a 5-4 vote.

Full Story from CBS5

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Tags: broadcast, closing arguments, federal trial, Gay Marriage, marriage equality, prop 8, proposition 8, same sex marriage

“Testimony: Equality on Trial” Encourages Community to Tape Key Scenes from Prop 8 Trial

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

Actress Marisa Tomei and actor Josh Lucas met last month in a West Hollywood park to read a compelling script taken from the pages of reality.

The Academy Award-winning Tomei played the part of a lesbian mother testifying in court. Lucas played the famous attorney questioning her about why marriage was so important to her.

“I don’t have access to the words that describe my relationship right now,” Tomei replied, reading from her script. “I’m a 45-year-old woman. I have been in love with a woman for 10 years and I don’t have a word to tell anybody about that. I don’t have a word.”

Full Story from AOL News

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Tags: federal trial, Josh Lucas, Marisa Tomei, prop 8, proposition 8, re-enactment, testimony: equality on trial, website

Gay Advocates Re-Enact Prop 8 Trial in San Francisco

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Two gay rights advocates re-enacted a scene from a same-sex marriage trial before a lunchtime audience in Union Square in San Francisco Thursday, helping to launch an unusual and ambitious public education project.

Danny Segura, a Courage Campaign outreach coordinator, took the part of Ryan Kendall, a 26-year-old gay man from Denver who was forced to undergo unsuccessful conversion therapy as a teenager. Kendall testified in federal court in San Francisco in January in the nation’s first trial on whether a state ban on same-sex marriage violates the U.S. Constitution.

Segura, reading from a trial transcript as he re-enacted Kendall’s testimony, recounted that the efforts by the young man’s therapists and parents “created a really emotionally and verbally abusive environment” but didn’t change his sexual orientation.

Full Story from KTVU

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Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Response »
Tags: federal trial, Gay Marriage, gay rights, marriage equality, prop 8, proposition 8, re-enactment, same sex marriage, san francisco, union square

MA: Arguments Begin in new DOMA Challenge

Friday, May 7th, 2010

Opening arguments in a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) began Thursday before a federal judge in Boston, the AP reported. The Boston-based gay rights group Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), the gay rights advocacy group at the center of the gay marriage debate in New England, is representing seven gay married couples and three surviving spouses from Massachusetts who have been denied federal benefits because of the 1996 law that defines marriage as a heterosexual union for federal agencies.

GLAD lawyer Mary L. Bonauto called the law an unconstitutional intrusion on a matter previously left to states. “All the federal government has ever cared about is that the person is married at the state level,” she argued before US District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro. “For the first time ever, DOMA departed from that.”

Bonauto asked Tauro to rule in the group’s favor without a trial.

Full Story from On Top Magazine

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Tags: challenge, defense of marriage act, doma, federal trial, Gay Marriage, glad, marriage equality, same sex marriage

MA: Second DOMA Lawsuit Proceeding in Federal Court

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

A second federal gay marriage trial is possible in a Massachusetts lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law that defines marriage as a heterosexual union for federal agencies and allows states to ignore legal gay marriages performed outside their borders.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), the Boston-based gay rights advocacy group at the center of the gay marriage debate in New England, filed the lawsuit in March on behalf of seven gay married couples and three surviving spouses from Massachusetts.

Motions filed by both parties – the government wants the lawsuit dismissed, while GLAD is requesting a ruling in its favor.

Full Story from On Top Magazine

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Tags: defense of marriage act, doma, federal trial, Gay Marriage, glad, ma, marriage equality, massachusetts, same sex marriage