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The Blend has confirmed that Ted Olsen and the four plaintiffs (Kris Perry & Sandy Stier and Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo) will be on in the first half hour (7:00AM ET/PT- 7:30AM ET/PT) of the The Today Show.
After the appearance, the video will be available on the American Foundation for Equal Rights website. http://www.equalrightsfoundation.org/media/videos/
An update on Day 1 and information on Day 2 from AFER via press release:
The federal trial over the unconstitutionality of Proposition 8 will continue Tuesday, January 12th at 8:30 am. Yesterday began with an opening statement by attorney Theodore Olson, who with David Boies is leading the legal team assembled by the American Foundation for Equal Rights to litigate the case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Opening statements were followed by testimony from Kris Perry, Sandy Stier, Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, who comprise two couples who wish to be married but who were denied marriage licenses because of Proposition 8.
David Boies conducted the direct examination of Katami and Zarrillo, and Olson conducted the direct examination of Perry and Stier.
Day two of the plaintiffs’ case is expected to begin with the continuation of testimony by Nancy Cott, PhD, the Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History at Harvard University, on the history of marriage. She is expected to be followed by testimony from George Chauncey, PhD, a professor at Yale University. He is expected to testify about the history of discrimination experienced by gays and lesbians in the United States.
Other resources from AFER:
http://twitter.com/amerequalrights (we’re carrying their feed on our front page widget)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40087831@N06/
http://www.facebook.com/AmericanEqualRights
http://www.youtube.com/user/AmericanEqualRights
***
Other notes to pass along…
* We’ve put up another Twitter widget on our right sidebar, featuring feeds from the NCLR, The Advocate, the ACLU of Northern California, The Courage Campaign and others that are live tweeting, including ProtectMarriage (until they block me, lol). It’s interesting to see the various bits of information strung together.
* Karen Ocamb has a great summary of Day 1 — with photos, “A heavy burden for the Prop 8 defenders“. Read this mind-blower:
But then, as if to painfully underscore how scattered, repetitious and at times awkwardly funny Cooper’s opening statement was, Judge Walker reminded him that just moments earlier in his opening statement, Ted Olson noted that Obama’s parents couldn’t get married in Virginia because they were of two different races.
But Cooper replied, “race has never been a restriction” enshrined in marriage. Some of us looked at each other and went, HUH????
He goes on to explain that race is not a restriction to the definition of marriage – ie that a man and a woman get married to procreate. Echoing Blankenhorn, Cooper says, marriage is a pro-child institution – WAY more important than love, emotion support and companionship.
And just to finalize his point, Cooper assert that the landmark civil rights case of Loving v Virginia, that ended race-based discrimination in marriage based on the 14th Amendment – was only about the race and not marriage so therefore the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause did not apply to same sex marriage.
Wow.
* Joe Mirabella, who is Tweeting for the Blend in the top left-column widget, has a wrap on yesterday’s events, “Prop 8 trial a “teachable moment“”
Today certainly was a teachable moment. Our community has been waiting for the opportunity to provide an honest portrayal of our love, our lives, and how the government’s role in segregating our community has been harmful to our lives and a violation of our 14th Amendment for decades.
I’m not a lawyer, so I won’t attempt to dissect today’s legal arguments, but I can tell you from a very personal perspective that it feels so good to know justice is in motion. Our community has perhaps the best legal team alive to represent us, and our opponent’s leadership is finally having to answer for their behavior over the last several years.
I hope the Supreme Court allows the broadcast to go through on YouTube and via remote viewing at the court houses. This case is a once in a lifetime opportunity to witness history.
* The Courage Campaign has a very comprehensive web site on the trial, http://prop8trialtracker.com/
BONUS: You have to see the latest theocratic e-blast from ProtectMarriage.com’s Executive Director Ron Prentice. It’s below the fold.
ProtectMarriage.com’s lead counsel, Charles Cooper, confidently strode to the podium in the San Francisco federal courtroom of Chief Judge Vaughn Walker and began his opening statement in defense of Proposition 8 and traditional marriage. He did a superb job in setting forth the main elements of our case:
• Traditional marriage has served society well for centuries;
• It is a pro-child institution;
• It exists in main purpose “to promote naturally procreative sexual activity in a stable and enduring relationship" that will nurture children;
• That gays and lesbians were not the target of ill will or discriminatory intent in the Yes on 8 campaign;
• That “there are millions of Americans who believe in equal rights for gays and lesbians but draw the line at marriage;” and
• That California voters were perfectly within their rights to decline to take a risk of suffering the consequences of destabilizing the institution of marriage.As proud as I was of Mr. Cooper and his eloquent articulation of the importance of traditional marriage, I have to confess to a feeling of being in a surreal environment. The courtroom was packed shoulder to shoulder, and many more filled the overflow room. Television cameras crowded the hallways. Reporters swarmed the courthouse looking for an angle to cover. And some of the most skilled attorneys in the nation argued before a federal judge about whether the institution of marriage is somehow illegal.
Never did I think I would see the day where God’s institution of marriage – the most stabilizing, pro-family, child-benefiting institution in human history – would be on trial before a federal j
udge in the nation whose forefathers founded the country on the premise of “in God we trust.”But here we are.
Our General Counsel, Andy Pugno, is a key member of the defense team and is handling the crush of media demands of the trial. To keep our supporters informed of developments, Andy will be posting comments twice daily to the Protect Marriage blog. His comments about today’s proceedings are available at www.protectmarriage.com/blog. Please check our revamped website frequently for his commentary.
Our Communications Director, Carla Hass, will be tweeting live updates from inside the courtroom. You can follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/protectmarriage. Commentary will also be posted on our Facebook and MySpace pages.
We’re in for a real fight to save traditional marriage. The trial court proceedings are expected to last for weeks. The case will then be appealed and, ultimately, will end up before the United States Supreme Court. Please help us ensure that marriage is preserved for future generations by making a contribution today. One example of our costs comes from a recent ruling of the Court that requires immediate assistance from two dozen attorneys, at a rate of $50,000 per day! The costs are great, and so much is at stake.
Thank you for your support.
Ron Prentice, Executive Director
© 2009 ProtectMarriage.com Action Fund. All Rights Reserved. | Contact Us
10 Comments
BridezillaMarriage is mostly about 1 thing nowadays: it’s one day for the bride to act all bitchy and nasty towards everyone and lose half of her friends before walking down the aisle.
Can’t help but thinkthat history will mark this case and indeed this period of civil rights battle as the time when so many millions of dollars were wasted to hurt families, rather than help.
We WILL win this and eventually, all American families will be recognized and protected equally, acknowledged equally. I know that with everything in me; that same as with other momentous events in history, we’re living in a time of huge shifts of direction.
But damn, it is effing wearying. Right now, I simply see the $$$ now and spent during the entire Prop 8 process and think, “What better ways could all of that be spent to help people, if it weren’t haven’t to be burned up in the courts, media, etc?”
And if makes me so angry and even more baffled at the mindsets of NOM etc.
Need more coffee to wake up and tackle the day, not reflect on the waste, I guess.
That’s why imothere is such a high divorce rate. The images of women dressed as fairy princesses with beautiful flowers, cakes, yadayadayada- there is never a REAL view of what comes next.
That ya wake up some mornings, turn over and say, “Egads, you look like death warmed over twice darling!” and that the same is said to you.
That it’s WORK-WORK-WORK being married. It’s a business arrangement and it takes ALOT of team effort, of the two of you against the world.
But where’s the romance and profitability in selling reality?
Don’t get me wrong; I love being married and because I do, I work daily to help others have the rights I have. Equal marriage cannot possible diminish or distract from that.
In fact I strongly believe the opposite is true- that the day we ALL can share this one very basic legal and societal acknowledgement of love and commitment with the person who completes our lives, recognized in all states and in all of America, will be an incredible day of validation for ALL marriages.
And how it is that so many people do not see that or want to support a tiered system rather than full equality, simply baffles me.
The National Organization for “Marriage” has never been elected by ANYONEas the official arbiter of “God’s institution of marriage”…and the utter arrogance used by this organization (and those on the Right) to claim they have some divine sanction to expect special privileges and rights for themselves (while denying them to others) is obscene.
Their arguments would be much more convincing if this trial was about a legal challenge to the right to DIVORCE – particularly when they rest their case so much on the claim of marriage being the essential component in promoting a “stable” environment for children. Yet the NOM will NOT sign onto that petition drive in California to put DIVORCE rights on the referendum ballot, claiming it is “unrealistic.”
Well, it seems to me that they can’t have it both ways. If they claim an institution with a 50% divorce rate must be afforded special rights status in perpetuity in order to “protect children” – and yet also allow heterosexuals who cannot or will not produce children to participate in the institution – while at the same time denying same-sex partners WITH children the right to claim the “stable” relationship, then they have no argument.
The numbers of same-sex couples are small enough that it is going to be difficult for the defense to claim that marriage rights are going to somehow overwhelm the heterosexual model and effectively ruin it forever. Since the defense will clearly steer away from discussing how DIVORCE has deinstitutionalized marriage, and they will steer away from showing that heterosexuals who marry beyond childbearing years has deinstitutionalized marriage, or how childless families have deinstitutionalized marriage, they are left with no real argument beyond playing upon the insecurities of homophobes.
We might as well rename the National Organization for Marriage the NOHR – the National Organization for Heterosupremacist Rights.
Was it Bumped?Oaky, I’m on the west coast and I re-arranged my schedule to watch this and its now past 7:30. Any word on what happened?
Not What I WantIf there comes a day when I decide to go the marriage route, it’ll be far from the traditional thing and definitely not like the Bridezilla affairs. Only closest friends and family members will be invited (unlike hetero weddings, where the bride sends invitations to everyone they’ve ever known – like your 1st grade class remembers you! LOL). It most definitely won’t take place in a church, or I’m not going!
As for living arrangements, I’d be pleased if he kept his own place and I keep mine. Even in my past relationships where we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, I like a break and don’t like somebody in my face 24/7 – plus the kitties would get jealous! LOL
I got married in a restuarantby a JOP I found in the phonebook and maybe 2 dozen people!
Bridezillsa scare the hell out of me. Have seen it happen twice- once I was the maid-of-honor for my best friend (marriage tanked within 5 years) and the other, I backed out of even being in the ceremony!
I was supposed to spend a month’s take home pay on an outfit I would wear ONCE (pink effing taffeta!) plus fly half-way across the country.
Screw that. It ended up costing me her friendship- c’est la vie!
Forget THAT!I’d rather show up in jeans and a KISS t-shirt because after saying “I Do”, I’m going to be partying anyway! LOL
Plus I don’t like any additional attention given to me than required.
Guest: “Scott, you look lovely today!”.
Me: “If you say so.”
You know something…Fighting so hard for us to have equal marriage rights makes me appreciate marriage more. While I can’t ever see myself being a Bridezilla (we don’t do the fairy princess thing in this house), I would like for Beloved’s and my wedding, should it ever happen, to be a joyful occasion. In light of our struggles for marriage rights against christian hate groups and their sheeple, such a day wouldn’t belong to just us, but to the friends and family who have supported us for so long. It would be a celebration of our commitment, of overcoming the not-inconsiderable odds stacked against us, and a day of gratitude for our loved ones’ untiring support of our relationship, even as the rest of society tries to condemn it and tear us down.
Proposition 8People who vote for “NO” are fighting for their right to marry with same sex partner. As we all know, marriage is definitely for a couple with opposite sex, however, the third sex (gay and lesbian) has also the right to choose the person to marry. California’s Prop 8 has been challenged on Constitutional grounds, in that it allegedly violates Due Process. Whether or not the California Supreme Court will agree, or if further lawyers and payday loans to pay them to argue before the Federal Appeals Circuit system are in order. In actuality, same sex marriage is something that should be a non-issue – we still don’t know everything about how 9/11 happened and THIS is what is taking up our time. We put man on the moon, and the biggest issue we have is who 10% of the populace is getting married to.