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Producers John Ireland and John Ainsworth have released the first part of their Prop 8 Trial Reenactment, and what I’ve seen so far is well done!

This is our first chance to see what happened inside the courtroom, using the court’s official trial transcript with help from spectators in the court during the proceedings.

See the official Marriage Trial website for a rundown of the parts and players, plus extra commentary from legal experts.

Stay tuned to Marriage Trial’s youtube channel for future episodes, scheduled for release every few days!

It’s No Name Calling Week, an annual event sponsored by GLSEN to promote acceptance and safer environments in schools.

In honor of this, I decided it’s time to talk about Tom Batiuk‘s Bullies Are Funny week in the comic strip Funky Winkerbean. These six consecutive strips appeared from December 14-19, 2009. I’ve been waiting for follow-up on the situation, but it’s been a month, and any follow-up wouldn’t undo the damage.

Cody, a newer character in the strip, seems to be a Les Moore stand-in when it comes to bullying. His first appearance last September, in another series about bullies, was more generalized than December’s, but I don’t think I’ve seen him in a strip that didn’t feature him as a victim.

Of course Batiuk doesn’t use the word fag, or even the barely-code sissy, but the implication is clear. Knowing a show tune is wrong, all the characters know it’s wrong, and Cody has gone from happy in the first strip to ashamed and afraid when someone hears him in the second.

Not only is Cody afraid, his fears seem to be justified. He’s been taunted by Seniors, and now his best friend Cory has joined in the fun by threatening the loss of his friendship.

(Incidentally, kudos to Batiuk for naming the characters Cory and Cody. It’s not confusing at all.)

Joking or not, loss of friendship is a fear shared by every young gay boy and lesbian, and even the straight kids who are just perceived as gay. The last panel below speaks volumes as Cody does his level best to hide his true self.

I had hoped Batiuk would redeem Bullies Are Funny week with an “I Learned Something” moment. Something as simple as Cory joining in on the song as the bullies walked by would have been enough; it wouldn’t even have been out of place in the world of Funky Winkerbean, where cancer and death mingle with laugh-free punch lines all the time.

But alas, it was not to be. The final strip in the series is below. This strip, in which Cody tries to decide whether to go back into hiding or embrace his new reputation as a fag by joining the drama club, which is apparently where all the sissies and fags hang out.

The message, if that’s what Batiuk was going for, is that fags should either try to run from their selves or hang out with other fags so they can be abused and alienated more effectively.

If Batiuk was going for funny, that fag sure does know a lot of faggy stuff about fag music and fag mythology. Ha ha. Fuckin’ fag.

I guess.

Thanks to GLSEN for continuing their marvelous work to keep gay kids safe in our schools. With their help, we’ll have fewer suicide victims to bury.

William Tam, the Prop 8 author who attempted to withdraw from the Prop 8 trial last week, was soundly eviscerated Thursday by plaintiff’s attorney David Boies.

It was rewarding to watch so many trucks driven through Tam’s (and by extension, other anti-gay leaders) arguments, but there was a nugget of information buried in his testimony that I think most people missed. In fact, I doubt that Tam himself caught the problem.

Here’s the complete transcript (pdf) from January 21, 2009, but I pulled out the two brief quotes, both from pages 1939-1940 (198-199 of the pdf).

Q. (David Boies) And do you believe that the NARTH website is a source of objective scientific information?

A. (William Tam) Well, I believe in what they say.

Q. (David Boies) You thought it was better to get your scientific information about this issue from the NARTH website as opposed to the American Psychological Association. Is that your testimony?

A. (William Tam) Uhm, yeah, I believe in what NARTH says.

Notice that both times, William Tam answered a question of fact with a statement of faith. He knew NARTH was an unreliable source, but he wasn’t looking for reliability. Science and truth were irrelevant, cast aside in favor of someone who would pat him on the back and tell him that pursuing his prejudices was good enough.

He’s not alone in this. By design, campaigns of prejudice are based on the gamble that most people will stop looking for facts if someone backs up their prejudice. That’s why anti-gay industry leaders like NARTH (and in turn, William Tam) rely singularly on extreme statements of emotion and fear.

Okay, I wanted to post this separate from the news about the transcripts being released. It’ll either be a great tool or completely useless.

Filmmakers John Ireland and John Ainsworth are currently filming Perry v Schwarzenegger using official transcripts, first-hand accounts, and professional actors. They only have a teaser available now, but we should be seeing more in the very near future.

(I stole the title from amboy00. Mad props, yo.)

My only concern is that the Pro-Prop-8, anti-gay side might be made into a caricature. That could be troublesome. Then again, they’re doing a pretty good job of that all on their own, so I think we’ll be okay.

You can find more information or donate to the production at their website, MarriageTrial.com.

P.S. It was my idea first. Too bad they took out the best part…

It looks like the Perry v Schwarzenegger testimony video won’t be available any time soon, so people are figuring out how to get the news. Fortunately for us, The American Foundation for Equal Rights, the group behind Perry is giving us the official transcripts.

The transcripts are long, but they hold their value is immeasurable. They’re also available nearly immediately, usually the day after the court session. I’ll be poring over these in the coming days, but here are the complete, official transcripts for the first seven days.

Other communication efforts are underway, but none (unless we get the actual video recordings) will be as damning for the Pro-Prop 8, anti-gay defendants.