Asterisk

The afternoon before the Prop 8 trial was set to begin, defendant Hak-Shing William (Bill) Tam requested that presiding Judge Walker remove him from the list of defendants. From Mercury News:

Hak-Shing William Tam was one of the five official sponsors of Proposition 8 who formally “intervened” in a federal lawsuit challenging the voter-approved ban. The lawsuit officially names the state as the defendant, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown have refused to defend the voter-approved ban.

On Friday, Tam told U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker that he fears for his and his family’s safety. In his court filing, Tam’s lawyers say the trial will bring him unwanted publicity and expose him to retribution from gay marriage supporters.

Tam also says the case has been more time-consuming and more intrusive into his personal life than expected.

Others have looked at the “fears for his safety” part. Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin looked at Tam’s claims on Saturday:

[Tam] listed his reasons as being due to his fears of recognition and reprisals. He claimed that his life, and that of his family, could be in danger.

As evidence, he submitted examples of threats against him during the campaign including vandalism (his car’s tire was punctured while parked on the street without a Prop 8 bumper sticker but in front of a house with a yard sign), theft (some girl tried to steal his yard sign but ran away), death threats (someone left a vulgar comment on a YouTube video which Tam claims to “take very seriously”) and racism (other vulgar comments on his YouTube video).

However, his concerns about being recognized didn’t seem to have dissuaded Bill Tam from giving interviews and making videos and participating in debates during the campaign. And the worrisome issues didn’t give him enough concern to keep him from petitioning the court in May 2009 to be added as a defendant. And Tam provides no instances since May in which anyone recognizing him has been anything other than “friendly”.

Obviously people shouldn’t threaten the man with harm. On the other hand, YouTube comments are always over the cliff, and as Timothy pointed out Tam was clearly unconcerned with the exposure before the Prop 8 vote in November 2008, and before May 2009 when he petitioned the judge to add him to the defendant list.

This fear for his life business is a smokescreen, a nice bit of fiction that Maggie Gallagher and other anti-gay leaders can sell to their followers.

So what’s the real story? Skipping ahead in Tam’s motion to withdraw:

The third reason I want to withdraw as a defendant-Intervenor is because, I am tired and I want peace. I want peace to carry on my ministry and I don’t want to be indefinitely tied down with this case. The case will likely go through the trial level, appeals level and possibly the Supreme Court. This could take several years and I do not want to be tied down for that period. I have work to do with my ministry and this case is interfering with that work.

Mr. Tam, we don’t want to be tied down with this case either, but you’re the ones who set this discrimination in motion. You get to deal with the consequences just like the rest of us. Frankly, if I could I’d trade burdens with you I’d do it in a heartbeat.

But the most interesting complaint in Tam’s motion is one this one. This is what Bill Tam is really afraid of.

A second reason that I want to withdraw as a Defendant-Intervenor is that I do not like the burden of complying with discovery requests. I do not like people questioning me on my private personal beliefs. I do not like people questioning me regarding fourteen year old articles I wrote in the Chinese language to my constituents. I don’t like people focusing on a few articles I posted on my website regarding homosexuality and disregarding the 50 or 60 other articles I posted regarding family values subjects. I do not like the exposure of my history to people who are antagonistic to me. In short, I do not like the burden of discovery and the privacy invasion associated with being a Defendant-Intervenor.

Poor guy. People are invading his privacy and judging him. He’d never do a thing like that, no sir.

One of these articles that Tam is fretting over was added to the official record by the plaintiffs. Most people have only seen the few lines pulled out in a footnote, but I decided to look it up and see the quotes in context. Here is a pdf of the September 2008 letter taken from the “Presence Ministry” website, with the full text below, with emphasis added.

What if We Lose

Dear friends,

This November, San Francisco voters will vote on a ballot to “legalize prostitution”. This is put forth by the SF city government, which is under the rule of homosexuals. They lose no time in pushing the gay agenda — after legalizing same-sex marriage, they want to legalize prostitution. What will be next? On their agenda list is: legalize having sex with children.

I hope we all wake up now and really work to pass Prop 8. We have only 48 days left. Even if you have church building projects, mission projects, concert projects, etc, please consider postponing them and put all the church man/woman power to work on Prop 8. We can’t lose this critical battle. If we lose, this will very likely happen……

1. Same-Sex marriage will be a permanent law in California. One by one, other states would fall into Satan’s hand.
2. Every child, when growing up, would fantasize marrying someone of the same sex. More children would become homosexuals. Even if our children is safe, our grandchildren may not. What about our children’s grandchildren?
3. Gay activists would target the big churches and request to be married by their pastors. If the church refuse, they would sue the church. Even if they know they may not win, they would still sue because they have a big army of lawyers from ACLU who would work for free. They know a prolonged law suit would cripple the church. They had sued the California government many times before. They sue until they win. They would not be afraid to sue a church. The church would have to spend lots of money in defending the case. The court fight would be long and the congregation would be discouraged and leave — how long are they willing to shoulder the law suit costs. The church may give in and accept them, their membership would grow and take over the church. Then a righteous pastor would have to leave. Such scenarios have happened in Scandinavian countries. At that time, churches would keep quiet, hoping that they won’t be picked as the next target. If your church is sued, don’t expect others to help your church. You would be in the battle alone, and chances are you would lose. If that happens, whatever nice building your church have built now would become meaningless.

In order not to let this happen, we better team up at the current battle to defeat same-sex marriage. Collectively, we have a chance to win. Right now, each church sacrifice a little. For 48 days, delay your projects, put your resources ($ and manpower) into Prop 8. We’d have great power if we pool our resources together. Let’s win this battle. After victory, your congregation would be energized and go back to the original projects with joy and cheer. They may want to give more and build a bigger building to thank God. Our God would be pleased and bless us more.

But if we lose, our congregation would lose heart. They might not want to work as hard. Our opponents would be overjoyed. They would do more and change more laws so as to persecute us easier. Churchs would have a much much harder time to survive. We would be collecting offerings to fight law suits instead of building new buildings. I pray that day would not come. The choice is yours. Talk to the leaders of your church. Your actions would change the history in either direction.

Thanks for your efforts,

Bill Tam
Traditional Family Coalition

Don’t like LGBT people? I’m okay with that.

Uneasy about social change on the horizon? Fine.

Don’t want us to get religiously married? I’ll even give you a pass there.

But Bill Tam stepped way over the line with this public letter, proving David Boies and Ted Olson’s point that the Prop 8 campaign was based on fear-mongering and anti-gay animus.

His motion denied, Bill Tam is expected to take the stand this Friday. Assuming the Supreme Court allows the delayed broadcast of the trial to go on as planned, you can expect to see that deposition and his taped deposition played in court this afternoon on YouTube.

On Monday morning, Prop 8 will again be in the spotlight. Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the second lawsuit questioning the legality of Prop 8, will begin in federal court in San Fransisco. Arguing for the constitution will be the somewhat surprising duo of former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson and celebrated trial lawyer Davis Boies.

Before the trial gets started, let’s take a good look at the genesis of the case and how the attorneys came to argue on the same side. I’m going to mostly shut up for the rest of this post (you’re welcome), choosing instead to let three articles speak for themselves.

This is a long post, but in each case I’m quoting only a small portion of the text. Please click through to read the entire articles.

First is “Challenging Prop 8: The Hidden Story”, and article from California Lawyer Magazine Managing Editor Chuleenan Svetvilas. Svetvilas gives the full story about how Perry came about.

As Chad Griffin tells it, the idea for filing a federal challenge to Prop. 8 took shape ten days after it passed with 52 percent of the vote. Griffin and Kristina Schake, his business partner in the Los Angeles communications firm Griffin/Schake, had joined director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, for lunch at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. Griffin had produced three television ads and raised money for the “No on 8″ campaign; the Reiners were contributors, as well as Griffin’s longtime clients. The four discussed the failed campaign and other election results.

After Griffin left, an acquaintance of the Reiners, Kate Moulene, stopped by and learned that they had discussed Prop. 8. Moulene later phoned Michele Reiner to suggest they talk to her former brother-in-law, Ted Olson, because, she said, he supported gay marriage. Though Olson has a long history as a prominent Republican lawyer—he served in both the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations—his leanings tend to be more libertarian than socially conservative.

The Reiners phoned Griffin about contacting Olson. “I would have been crazy not to talk to him if it were true that such a prominent conservative and legal scholar was on our side,” Griffin says.

Because Olson’s involvement would be major news, secrecy was imperative. On November 21, a week after the Polo Lounge lunch, Griffin met Olson at Gibson Dunn’s Washington, D.C., office. There, Olson declared his interest in taking a case challenging the constitutionality of Prop. 8.

[...] Ted Olson—keenly aware of his reputation as a prominent conservative—says he knew from the beginning that he would need to try the Perry case with co-counsel. “I wanted to have someone who would have credibility with people who might be suspicious of what I’m doing here,” he says. “I wanted people to be comfortable with the lawyering, and the judiciary to feel that this was not a liberal or a conservative issue; that it wasn’t a political issue, it was a legal issue.”

For candidates, Olson considered prominent trial lawyers, Supreme Court practitioners, and gay lawyers. He also discussed with Boutrous the marquee possibilities of David Boies, his opponent in Bush v. Gore and name partner in the Armonk, New York, office of Boies, Schiller & Flexner. “I thought, ‘Boy, this would be perfect,’ ” recalls Olson. “Lawyers who were on opposite sides, someone who is well-identified in prominent Democratic circles.”

In a May 10 conference call with Boutrous and the [American Foundation for Equal Rights] principals, Olson presented his idea. “Everyone on the call said, ‘Oh, my God, do you think he would do it? That would be fantastic,’ ” Olson says. When he spoke by phone with Boies a few days later at his New York office, Boies immediately said yes.

[...] On May 20, Katami and Zarrillo met a Gibson Dunn associate at the Los Angeles County Clerk’s office. Katami nervously filled out the paperwork for a marriage license. “I felt a mix of sadness because I knew what the outcome was going to be,” he says. “The experience brought out all these emotions.” The men handed over their completed forms, and the clerk very politely told them: “Gentlemen, at this time I cannot issue you a license.”

“It was still emotional to be denied,” recalls Zarrillo. “But in all fairness [to the clerk], she handled it really well. [Her words] reiterated that we were denied equal rights. It made us feel that we made the right decision to be a part of this case.”

The next day, things went much the same way at the Alameda County Clerk-Recorder’s office. “We knew what to expect,” says Stier. “But there’s still a bit of humiliation in the exercise.”

Next we have an opinion piece from David Boies originally published on November 1, 2009. In it, Boies examines the unconstitutionality of Prop 8.

The constitutional issue is quite simple. The Supreme Court repeatedly has held that the right to marry the person of your choice is a fundamental human right guaranteed by the equal-protection and due-process clauses of the Constitution:

In 1967, in Loving v. Virginia, a unanimous court overturned the laws of more than 20 states that at the time prohibited interracial marriage.

In 1978, the Supreme Court, in Zablocki v. Redhail, vacated as unconstitutional (by an 8-1 vote) a Wisconsin law preventing child-support scofflaws from getting married. The court emphasized, “Decisions of this court confirm that the right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals.”

In 1987, in Turner v. Safley, the court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, struck down as unconstitutional a Missouri law preventing imprisoned felons from marrying, holding that marriages were “expressions of emotional support and public commitment. These elements are an important and significant aspect of the marital relationship.”

In 2003, Lawrence v. Texas held that states could not constitutionally outlaw consensual homosexual activity. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia noted that the court’s ruling undermined the rationale for any state limitations on gay marriage.

[...] as Justice Anthony M. Kennedy elegantly wrote in Lawrence v. Texas, rejecting the notion that a history of discrimination might trump constitutional rights:

“Times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.”

Finally, Ted Olson makes “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage” in Newsweek magazine yesterday.

This procreation argument cannot be taken seriously. We do not inquire whether heterosexual couples intend to bear children, or have the capacity to have children, before we allow them to marry. We permit marriage by the elderly, by prison inmates, and by persons who have no intention of having children. What’s more, it is pernicious to think marriage should be limited to heterosexuals because of the state’s desire to promote procreation. We would surely not accept as constitutional a ban on marriage if a state were to decide, as China has done, to discourage procreation.

Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples? Tellingly, when the judge in our case asked our opponent to identify the ways in which same-sex marriage would harm heterosexual marriage, to his credit he answered honestly: he could not think of any.

[...] California’s Proposition 8 is particularly vulnerable to constitutional challenge, because that state has now enacted a crazy-quilt of marriage regulation that makes no sense to anyone. California recognizes marriage between men and women, including persons on death row, child abusers, and wife beaters. At the same time, California prohibits marriage by loving, caring, stable partners of the same sex, but tries to make up for it by giving them the alternative of “domestic partnerships” with virtually all of the rights of married persons except the official, state-approved status of marriage. Finally, California recognizes 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place in the months between the state Supreme Court’s ruling that upheld gay-marriage rights and the decision of California’s citizens to withdraw those rights by enacting Proposition 8.

So there are now three classes of Californians: heterosexual couples who can get married, divorced, and remarried, if they wish; same-sex couples who cannot get married but can live together in domestic partnerships; and same-sex couples who are now married but who, if they divorce, cannot remarry. This is an irrational system, it is discriminatory, and it cannot stand.

Americans who believe in the words of the Declaration of Independence, in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, in the 14th Amendment, and in the Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and equal dignity before the law cannot sit by while this wrong continues. This is not a conservative or liberal issue; it is an American one, and it is time that we, as Americans, embraced it.

Again, please click through to read all three articles. There will be much (MUCH) more news on this case in the coming weeks and months.

The civil rights movement has seen some remarkable losses in the last few months. In early November, voters overturned a marriage law in Maine. A month later, the New York Senate voted against civil rights in marriage. Then yesterday, after a brief period of debate, the New Jersey Senate voted against a similar civil rights bill. David Badash of The New Civil Rights Movement was good enough to put some of the speeches online. Below are four of them.

NJ Sen. Bill Baroni:"Unequal treatment by government is always wrong."

NJ Sen. Nia Gill: "I believe in the constitution."

NJ Sen. Gerald Cardinale: Straight people are "disenfranchised."

NJ Sen. Bill Kean: The Worst Kind Of Hypocrite

And so to the question: What can we gain from this experience? I think we can use this failure (theirs, not ours) as an opportunity to reconsider our strategy.

We need to remember that we never chose this war. Remember, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) came about 14 years ago because the Hawaii Supreme Court ordered that the state must show compelling reasons to exclude lesbians and gays from marriage. Anti-gay forces recognized the repercussions if that battle didn’t go their way, so they got DOMA passed to preempt a potential loss.

Then they got busy on individual states. In every single case (someone correct me if I’m wrong), the Religious Right pushed us into a marriage battle, most notably in 2004 under the direction of twice-divorced Karl Rove. Now Maggie Gallagher uses lies to continue their assault on civil rights.

Understand, even if civil rights were to win at the ballot box, you can bet they would be ready to drop another load of lies that we would waste another couple million dollars defending against, and then we’d lose. Again, that’s not because we’re doing something wrong, but because bigotry and fear are easy sells, especially when the opponent has no relationship with the truth.

My point is that we’ve been on the defense from the start. That’s a losing plan. After 31 popular votes and I-don’t-know-how-many state legislature votes, it’s time to start playing offense.

And that’s not the only reason.

The biggest problem is that when the votes from the legislature or the people are counted up we’ve still encouraged either the legislature or the people to vote on someone’s rights, regardless of who wins. That’s not just unethical, it’s downright Unamerican.

You know what I’d really like to see? The next time the question goes to the public, we make one ad, not telling people to vote for us, but telling them not to vote on the issue at all. We should acknowledge up front that we anticipate a loss but have made that sacrifice in favor of the greater constitutional principle. Then we take the millions we would have spent on a losing campaign and give it to the homeless or some other worthy cause.

In other words, stop playing the game. Opt out.

I think we win something if we opt out of their battle and lose. We’re 0-31 in the popular vote, and the last one in Maine was lost by a nearly perfectly run campaign. We will continue to lose that battle regardless of what we do, so why not turn that energy toward a different battle, one of our choosing?

We should pour some money and effort into finding the best attorneys to fight the best court cases, like the upcoming challenge to Prop 8 (more on that later) and the case being brought by Lambda Legal and Garden State Equality against yesterday’s decision in the New Jersey Senate.

In the end, that’s where we’ll win.

Scott Lively, Ex-Gay Industry leader and co-author of the thoroughly debunked book “The Pink Swastika”, lectured at a March 2009 anti-gay conference in Uganda less than a month before a Kill The Gays bill was introduced to the Uganda legislature.

I first mentioned the Kill The Gays bill last April, but Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin was on the case when the conference was still being organized. Rachel Maddow has recently lent some much-overdue exposure to the quite literal call for legally sanctioned murder in Uganda.

Monday evening, Lively gave a 23 minute interview on the Alan Colmes Show. He attempted to defend his work in Uganda and ended up stating that gay Europeans were coming to Uganda and “messing with the young men” (3:54), analogizing (his word) homosexuality to drunk driving and alcoholism with a punishment choice of therapy or jail (6:30), claiming that homosexuals weren’t persecuted in Nazi Germany (20:30), and calling imprisonment and the death penalty of gays a “step in the right direction” (20:50). Here’s the audio:

Scott Lively on The Alan Colmes Show

I’m sure Lively thought that was enough negative exposure for one week, but this morning Box Turtle Bulletin and Ex-Gay Watch sent shockwaves through the gay blogosphere, jointly releasing video of Lively’s lecture at the Uganda conference. It’s unbelievable footage that BTB had previously reported in text-form only. It’s turned my stomach several times today, so discretion is advised. Here are the three videos:

And three unedited videos:

This is the first time I’ve seen the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 attributed to homosexuals, and it wasn’t an incidental inclusion. Rwanda borders Uganda to the south, and the trip from Kampala (where he was speaking) to the border only takes a few hours.

In other words, Scott Lively falsely and directly linked the mass murder of 800,000 of Uganda’s next door neighbors of less than a generation ago to the group the Ugandans were looking for evidence against.

This goes beyond mongering hate or even garden-variety evil. I don’t even know what to call Lively anymore. I’d love to pretend he doesn’t exist, but he’s made himself too dangerous to ignore.

Blood will be shed in Uganda. This is no longer hyperbole. Not only are LGBT people in that country not safe, they are being actively hunted by a populace that has been spoon fed irrational fear.

And Scott Lively–who, make no mistake, knows exactly what he’s doing–has handed them a gun.

Yesterday, people with HIV/AIDS were barred from entering the United States. Yesterday, people with HIV/AIDS had to apply for waivers to visit friends and family members before coming home. Yesterday, people with HIV/AIDS were subjected to prejudicial treatment based on outdated views and disproven fears.

Today, the world changed.

From Immigration Equality Communications Director Steve Ralls:

Later today, a plane from The Netherlands will arrive at JFK Airport in New York and two passengers onboard will, for the first time in more than two decades, be able to step safely onto U.S. soil. The arrival of Clemens Ruland and Hugo Bausch will also signal the end of a shameful and discriminatory policy that has exacted a heavy price on our country’s reputation in the scientific community and kept countless individuals – both straight and gay – separated from their loved ones.

Beginning today, the United States’ decades-old HIV Travel and Immigration Ban will be a relic of the past, and the stigma and discrimination it has engendered around the world will, with any luck, begin to fade, too.

The ban, which was put into place due, in large part, to the efforts of former Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, whose action resulted in an unconscionable policy of separation for families, spouses and children who were literally torn apart because of the law. It was, as President Obama remarked when announcing its demise, “a decision rooted in fear, rather than fact.”

Good riddance to a horrible reminder of America’s bigotry.