Tag: Perry v Schwarzenegger

I’ve been watching the Prop 8 trial…except not really, since SCOTUS disallowed us folks who couldn’t be in the courtroom to watch what may be the most important court case ever for GLBT people.  So I watched the transcripts instead, as they were posted by the people at the Courage Campaign Institute and FiredogLake.  

One of the assertions made time and again by the defense was that Proposition 8 was not based in animus.

What?  No strong dislike of GLBT people?  No enmity?  Are we seriously expected to believe that there was no hostile attitude?

I’d like to think that one could discount those assertions as being false on there face.  But this was a court of law.  I am no lawyer, but as a writer and a mathematician, I know words and logic.

Having followed the trial closely, I have to ask the following.

When you deliberately choose not to learn about people who you wish to discriminate against, what is that if not animus?

Mr. Tam admits he, at the very least, helped author the fourteen words central to Proposition 8.

Brian Leubitz wrote a piece at Prop 8 Trial Tracker, entitled William Tam: He’s like that Cute Ignorant Uncle that everybody cringes at.

No.  I disagree.  There is nothing cute about Hak-Shing “William” Tam.

I expected at any moment for him to just stand up and say “just kidding! Got you big-time, you don’t think I actually believe that garbage, do you? Ha-ha!”

Methinks that let’s Mr. Tam off the hook too easily.

I’ve been “watching”  the trial in the 9th Circuit.  You know, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, though Perry is only one of the plaintiffs and Ahnold is not, apparently, one of the defendants.  More precisely, it might be labeled Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals v. Homophobes.

A keen observer might notice that I omitted Transgender there.  Such an observer might ask why.  The reason is that transgender people have been made invisible in this trial and the reporting thereof.

It was not unexpected.