Posts filed under 'Daily Summary'
An amazing 24 hours: Round-up of NOM tour and marriage equality news
By Adam Bink
Over at my home blog, OpenLeft.com, I often do a round-up of LGBT-related news and actions that are worth noting. I thought I’d bring the same feature here for some noteworthy items you may have missed:
- Coverage of Larry Adams sign and our interview with him is certainly making the rounds on the Web. I’ve seen it on The Advocate, Dallas Voice, LGBTPOV, San Diego Gay and Lesbian News, AMERICABlog, Towleroad, Think Progress, and elsewhere. If you haven’t seen it, the interview is below.
- On that note, Freedom to Marry, a sponsor of NOM Tour Tracker, has a petition up calling on NOM to repudiate such anti-LGBT violence and rhetoric. You can sign here.
- As noted throughout the comments today, Louis (Hi, Louis!) Marinelli just made his blog private:
- EquallyWed.com, an online same-sex wedding magazine, discusses the tour and our coverage.
I think I speak for all of us, Louis, when I say my life just got about 0.23% less interesting. Sigh. We’ll miss reading your musings, especially the one where you said a baby wasn’t part of her family because she was adopted by a same-sex couple of a different race.
- Some independent coverage of today’s rally in Madison over at WisPolitics.com, including this insult from a NOM speaker:
Among the speakers at the NOM rally were Madison Bishop Robert Morlino and Julaine Appling, CEO of the Wisconsin Family Council.
Appling thanked the NOM supporters for coming, saying “you have real jobs, you have real lives.”
- If Brian Brown wants to talk about harrassment and intimidation, perhaps he should ask his own supporters. Here’s an equality supporter talking about her experience in Indianapolis yesterday.
- We didn’t get many other videos up yesterday of rally coverage in Indianapolis, so here’s one for folks to check out. As usual massive turnout #FAIL, and you can see that by how NOM always asks supporters to come closer so it looks like they have an actual crowd.
- HRC and Fred Sainz are spot on in their release regarding NOM today:
“The bus tour is a total sham, plain and simple,” said Fred Sainz, HRC’s vice president of communications. “NOM’s highly-touted bus tour is less about so-called ‘traditional marriage’ and more about creating an elaborate and cynical stunt. NOM rolled out a summer of nationwide events in order to draw lawful protesters, all so that NOM and its allies can pepper ongoing lawsuits challenging public disclosure laws with made-up stories of harassment. This unprecedented victimization crusade is the lowest denominator of political activism, and it won’t fly.”
You can read the full release here.
We’ll be reporting from St. Paul tomorrow. See you then.
Meanwhile, if you have any links, videos or photos to share with the community in the comments, post away!
170 comments July 27, 2010
FINALLY: Closing Arguments Set for June 16th
By Paul Hogarth
So now we finally have a date for Closing Arguments for the Prop 8 trial — Wednesday, June 16th, or 156 days after the start of the Trial. By now, we’ve heard the evidence, we know what’s been said, and there’s been a lot of analysis on this site about what it means for the outcome, our movement, and our lives.
But besides setting a date for closing arguments, Judge Walker set a date for the defense counsel to submit their motion to suppress at least part of Dr. Tam’s testimony. As you recall, Dr. Tam was the right-wing San Francisco minister who believed that his kids will turn gay if marriage equality was allowed to remain. We’ll find out on May 7th how much of the testimony they want stricken from the record, and what is their basis. Our side will have until May 10th to then file an objection.
So what happens if Dr. Tam’s testimony is taken out? Dr. Tam was powerful evidence that Prop 8 was driven by animus and a hatred of homosexuals, which would be enough to strike Prop 8 — even under the more lenient “rational basis” grounds set up in Romer v. Evans (1996.) But while Dr. Tam’s testimony is damning and it should be kept in, there was a whole lot of other evidence that our side presented. In fact, when it came time for the defense to produce their “experts,” there wasn’t a whole lot of reason they could provide.
If it’s impossible to dream up a “rational” basis for deny LGBT people the right to marry the person they love, and all the reasons the defense provides is merely a subterfuge for bigotry, Prop 8 must be found unconstitutional. Dr. Tam’s testimony was the most dramatic and forceful, but our side put on a good case tying other “rationales” for Prop 8 to be simply animus. In fact, I would argue the strongest witness we had for our side was San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders — who explained how he came to the realization that his so-called “friendly” reasons for opposing gay marriage had merely been based out of irrational discomfort.
59 comments April 28, 2010
Liveblogging Day 12: Daily Summary
By Julia Rosen
This is the last daily summary for a few weeks.
Here is the timeline we are looking at… Amicus briefs are due on February 3rd. Judge Walker is bringing the lawyers in to go over these briefs on Feburary 26th. He indicated as they were wrapping up today that at that time (the 26th) he will schedule the closing arguments. That likely means we will not have closing arguments until early March, with the ruling several weeks after that, depending on how long Judge Walker takes.
I know, the wait stinks, but I’d much rather Judge Walker be deliberative about this process and his ruling than it be rushed. No matter what way this goes, the wording in his ruling will influence what the appeals court and eventually the Supreme Court will say and do.
The hiatus does not mean we will be stopping around these parts. There will be fresh content throughout this break, so keep coming back and join in the comments. (more…)
68 comments January 27, 2010
Liveblogging Day 11: Daily Summary
By Julia Rosen
Can you believe we only have one day left of testimony? That’s a shame because watching David Boies cross-exam the defense’s witnesses sure has been entertaining. Our Trial Trackers can’t get enough of it. The stats and comments go through the roof any time Boies is grilling someone.
For those who like metrics as much as I do, we are now at 1.3 million views and over 13,000 comments. That’s more than a thousand comments a day.
Rick will be back tomorrow, which is likely to be a half day, since Boies just has to finish his cross examination of David Blankenhorn. Charles Cooper told Judge Walker today that they will not be calling Frank Schubert to the stand, so Miller and Blankenhorn will be their only witnesses. Then we will have a several week break before the closing arguments.
With that said, daily summary time… (more…)
48 comments January 26, 2010
Liveblogging Day 10: Daily Summary
By Julia Rosen
Man, David Boies just destroyed the defense’s first witness today on cross. I even had a friend and a former student of Professor Miller tweeting at me their embarrassment at his implosion. More specifically, Miller admitted that DOMA and DADT were legislated discrimination. And that was just the afternoon…
This morning the plaintiffs introduced evidence of Prop 8 proponents comparing gay marriage to 9/11 and a reference to polygamy or two. Oh and the tiny little revelation that NOM, the Catholic Church, LDS Church, and the Family Research Council all conspired together through ProtectMarriage.com to use fear and lies to pass Prop 8. It’s something we all knew, but it sure is validating to see it all laid out in Federal Court.
Boies gets to finish his fun in the morning, then it is on to their second and possibly last witness. I think they know they just hurt their case if they get any witnesses of their own on the stand, so they aren’t calling very many.
Now for the real show, the compiled liveblogging from Rick Jacobs from day 10 of Perry v. Schwarzengger. (more…)
72 comments January 25, 2010
Liveblogging Day 9: Daily Summary
By Julia Rosen
I just got off the phone with Rick. He sounds like he is really looking forward to the weekend. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t as well. I’m sure your refresh buttons are as well. Even though it was a short week, it was action packed.
Today’s proceedings were a bit tedious, at least in the afternoon, as Nielson repeatedly attempted to get Professor Herek to say that gay and lesbians can change their sexual orientation. Dr. Herek hung tough and Nielson is lucky he didn’t totally tick off Judge Walker with his repetitive questioning.
Rick will be back liveblogging on Monday morning and we will have fresh content throughout the weekend, including a few guest posts from some new voices. Personally, I am looking forward to a post from my friend and coworker Caitlin who just proposed to her fiance Jen last weekend. They will be talking about this case and the difficulty in deciding where to get married, and have it be legal.
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And without further ado, here is your daily summary. (more…)
41 comments January 22, 2010
Liveblogging Day 8: Daily Summary
By Julia Rosen
Wow! What a day. Dr. William Tam was the star of the show today. The comments were flooding in as Trial Trackers obsessively refreshed the page.
But before Tam took his seat on the witness stand, Dr. Segura finished his testimony. Then all eyes turned to Tam who brought the crazy, as everyone expected. The Prop 8 lawyers did their best, filing objection after objection to keep Tam and evidence out of the court record, but Judge Walker let it fly.
Note: Be sure to stick around. Brian Leubitz has a post on Tam going live in a little bit and Robert Cruickshank will be writing later about how today’s SCOTUS decisions on corporate dollars in politics relates to Prop 8.
With that said, here is your daily summary of Rick Jacobs’ liveblogging. He will be back tomorrow as the plaintiffs finish their case and the defense starts calling their witnesses. (more…)
43 comments January 21, 2010
Liveblogging Day 7: Daily Summary
By Julia Rosen
It’s that time of the day, where we compile the massive liveblogging into one thread for those who have broken F5 keys, or kids that demand their attention, or professors, or bosses and couldn’t stay obsessively refreshing all day long.
Today, Rick Jacobs and Brian Leubitz took turns again posting. Tomorrow, Rick will be there throughout the day. We are getting close to the end of the plaintiff’s witnesses. They might be able to wrap up tomorrow, but it could bleed into Friday. (more…)
16 comments January 20, 2010
Liveblogging Day 5: Daily Summary
By Julia Rosen
Wow! Can you believe it’s only been week one of the trial?
The plaintiffs have not made it through all of their witnesses yet, so we have quite a ways to go. It’s a long weekend remember, so we won’t be back liveblogging the proceedings until Tuesday.
As is tradition, below is the daily summary of the liveblogging in chronological order. Remember that the categories over on the right column are a useful way to navigate through the site, for example to find all of the liveblog postings, or the daily summaries. (more…)
64 comments January 15, 2010
