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Someone from NCLR started having fun with the "Texts From Hillary" meme. This was the best.

File this under “shocking”: Raw Story calls our attention to yet another study showing that self-professed homophobes smolder with homo-yes desires. Many of my gay Republican friends have always said the best place to have a brief but passionate fling is the Republican National Convention. Just makes me chuckle. Now here’s the news:

• JoeMyGod tells us that a Catholic Charities board member quit after New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan answered with a curt and accusatory reply the pleas for peace and understanding from the director of an LGBT homeless youth shelter.
• Colorado State freshmen claim they were jumped by members of the football team hurling not only fists and kicks, but homophobic slurs, says Outsports.
• The Liberian Government has finally spoken up for the LGBT people in that west African nation, saying they will prosecute the publishers of a list of names and addresses of LGBT people paired with death threats, says Think Progress.
• The White House is looking for pro-equality home movies from LGBT people in time for Pride, says GoodAsYou.
• Think Progress says in Maine, anti-gay foes distribute a “Sodomy-based marriage” truth pledge, in which signers pledge to always call our marriages “sodomy-based.” A phrase which causes actual gay married couples who have been together for years look at one another and burst out laughing.

Finally, here is the latest marriage news watch from Matt Baume and the good people at American Foundation for Equal Rights — the organization behind the Federal case against Prop 8, ‘Perry v. Brown.’

(h/t JoeMyGod)

BONUS: Happy 100th birthday to Mattachine Society founder Harry Hay (via LGBTPOV)!

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"Rub against me, and I'll expose you!" proclaims a new anti-harassment campaign by Washington Metro Area Transit Association.

We thought we’d know by now, but we don’t: Towleroad says there are conflicting media reports about the result of Anchorage’s vote on an LGBT non-discrimination ordinance, after accusations of widespread irregularities. While we wait for clarity there, here are five more stories you should be talking about today:

• Stop telling everyone Bruno Mars came out of the closet Monday. He totally didn’t come out of the closet, says Towleroad.
• AMERICAblog finds this for us: stroke can make you gay. In related news, I’m looking for advice on safely giving Channing Tatum a stroke. (OBVIOUSLY JUST KIDDING [but taking suggestions on other things that can make men turn gay])
• An anti-gay group in Liberia — where the President just awkwardly defended her anti-gay nation’s policies during a media event with pro-gay Tony Blair — has published a “hit list” with the names of gays and lesbians in that nation, says Think Progress. Shame on Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who ought to give back her Nobel Peace Prize.
• Blogger (and friend of the Blade) Scott Wooledge pulled a fast one on you. His Huffington Post piece — which claimed that Microsoft and Apple requested NOM boycott them too, after the anti-gay group’s boycott of Starbucks resulted in an outpouring of good will and an uptick in brand loyalty — was just satire. I’d like to nominate it for best satire piece of 2012 right now.
• JoeMyGod: Its official, NPH will host the Tonys again!

Finally, so so very very much more about the National Organization for Marriage from Matt Baume and Marriage News Watch at the American Foundation for Equal Rights:

(h/t JoeMyGod)

BONUS: John Aravosis over at AMERICAblog gay shared his reaction to Dan Savage’s new MTV show “Savage U” with his readers:

“I’m amazed at how much he knows. Granted, he’s been doing this for decades, but still. His answers are funny, interesting, and insightful. Dan is no Dr. Drew. And hallelujah for that. I’ve always found Dr. Drew a bit uptight, and I’ll never forget the tirade he let Kathy Griffin go on about an-l sex once on their TV show (not the radio tirade), and I recall him agreeing with her (sorry, have to use the funny spelling or the ads flee). Dan, however, is more of a midwest version of Dr. Ruth, without the accent. Very self-affirming for the recipients of his advice (except for no-condom guy), which is nice to see.”

“Like most new shows, it needs to find its groove. And I do think Dan is at his best when he lets his hair down. And that’s not in intimate situations when a camera is on him. I’d really like to see Dan do some of the format that Dr. Drew and that idiot Adam used on their old TV show, hanging out in a cool space with people – almost like a MTV unplugged set – having a good back and forth, watching the audience get into it, watching Dan play off the audience. I don’t think standing at a podium lends itself to good TV. That Drew/Adam set did.”

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlUG8F9uVgM

A star-studded showing of Dustin Lance Black’s ’8′ based on Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial transcripts, raised over $2 million for the case’s lead sponsors, the American Foundation for Equal Rights, according to Towleroad.

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JoeMyGod brought our attention to a great new marriage map by the LA Times that let's you know exactly just how crazy this patchwork of laws is. (LA Times)

Congratulations, Utah public school students! Schools can no longer teach about contraception or homosexuality in sex-ed, and can opt-out of sex ed completely (h/t AMERICAblog gay)! Think of all the fun you’re going to have with all those pregnancies and diseases, and all of the cool fake science you’re going to learn from your friends like, “you can’t get pregnant if you go to the bathroom right after.” Mazel tov, Utah, on winning the stupidest state legislature of the day award! Now for the news:

• A comprehensive PPIC survey of likely California voters finds that 56%  — up from 47% in October of 2008 — favor overturning Proposition 8 to allow same-sex couples to marry in that state, with 72% of Democrats, 56% of independents and 34% of Republicans favoring marriage equality.
• According to ThinkProgress, officials in Philippines tourist town Puerto Galerta are trying to ban gay entertainers after complaints of “vulgar language.”
• Indiana lawmakers are trying to do away with a pro-gay licence plate in that state, according to Bilerico.
•  The Catholic Diocese of Sacramento is showing its Christian love by cutting all of the funding to homeless shelter Francis House (you know, named after Catholic saint Francis of Assisi) because the new director is gay-friendly, according to ThinkProgress. Way to double down on hate, there, bishops.
• The Associated Press has put a spotlight on the plight of homeless LGBT youth, a silent epidemic seldom discussed in the LGBT media, let alone the mainstream media (h/t AMERICABLOG gay). We say kudos!

Finally, JoeMyGod brings us the AFER Prop 8 9th Circuit Appeals Court victory highlights reel.

Get out your tissues. This is awesome.

What do you think of the Fast Five Fix? What kind of news and information would you like to see? Do you want to see more national? More international? More local? Events? Pictures? Video? Let us know in the comments below.

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A (possibly gay) helicopter parent. (illustration by Greg Williams via Wikimedia Commons used in compliance with Creative Commons license)

Gay parents are being added to the seminal parenting books bearing the name “Dr. Spock” that helped all of our Boomer and Xer parents leave us Yers and Millennials with tremendous future therapy bills. LGBTQHelicopter Parents anyone?

• Just in time to steal Portland Oregon’s thunder, OutFront Colorado is saved as a new owner takes over. But we’re not really sure what the new owner, Transformation Communication Group is…
• Suburban Chicago’s Elmhurst College boasts 5% LGBT student body after implementing new optional questions on admissions surveys.
• Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuba’s leader Raul Castro, says that Cuba’s lawmakers may consider a bill extending marriage rights to same-sex couples.
• Peter LaBarbera just protested the Southern Poverty Law Center over being labeled the leader of a certified ‘Hate Group.’ And to show just how rational and non-hateful he is, he brought along Patrick Wooden who claims gay men need diapers or surgery by their 40s or 50s.
• Finally, not to be outdone by Indiana, South Carolina will also offer a pro-LGBT license plate. Yes. That South Carolina.

Check out the preview below for the play “8″ about the federal trial challenging the constitutionality of California’s anti-gay marriage Prop 8. The LA premier is slated for March 3 with George Clooney as one of the stars.

Oh, and if you’re bored, ‘Designer Drugs’ will be at the U Street Music Hall (where I believe my phone may still be) tonight …We mean the DJ duo.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30z-IRJdHfQ

Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the ‘Prop 8′ case is back in the 9th Circuit Court of appeals Thurs. Marriage News Watch’s Matt Baume will answer all your questions about what’s going on this time, and give you the rundown about what’s at stake and what the possible outcomes will be.

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Today the California Supreme Court heard oral arguments over whether or not under state law civilian supporters can take the place of the state, specifically in the Federal case challenging anti-marriage equality Proposition 8.

The hour long hearing was followed by press conferences in which both sides expressed pleasure in the outcome. The court, however, still has 90 days to come to a decision, and both opponents and supporters of Proposition 8 will be watching closely for any indication that that decision is ready.

In August of last year, Federal Court Judge Vaughn Walker found unconstitutional Proposition 8, the law barring marriage between two adults of the same sex created after a November 2008 ballot measure, ruling in favor of plaintiffs represented by the organization American Foundation for Equal Rights. The attorneys leading the charge against the law are former President Bush solicitor general Ted Olson, and former Al Gore lawyer David Boies who in 2000 faced off in Bush v. Gore. While plaintiffs are seeking to restore marriage equality to California, proponents of the measure are attempting to appeal Judge Walker’s ruling.

The 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals put the case, Perry v. Brown (formerly Perry v. Schwarzenegger) on hold in January after both Governor Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris refused to defend the law in court citing their own constitutional objections. When concerned citizen groups hoping to keep the law on the books attempted to fill in for the state to defend the law, the 9th Circuit asked the California Supreme Court to rule on whether or not the concerned groups can in fact defend the law in place of the state. The legal principle at question is “standing,” which Law.com defines as “the right to file a lawsuit or file a petition under the circumstances.”

Though the 9th Circuit will make the ultimate decision, the appeals certified a question to the State Supreme Court of California on whether state law allows proponents of the ballot initiative to have the right to represent the state in the appeal in place of the state officials themselves. In February the California Supreme Court agreed to address the 9th Circuit’s question which led to today’s hearing.

If the State Supreme Court decides that the interest groups — which include a well-funded conservative website called ProtectMarriage.com — can indeed take the place of the state in defending the law, the 9th Circuit is expected to follow the guidance, allowing the case to proceed through the 9th Circuit despite the non-involvement of any agents of the state. Likewise, if the California Supreme Court decides against the proponents of Proposition 8, the 9th Circuit is expected to concur, which will end the appeals process at Judge Walker’s decision overturning the law.

The Proposition 8 ballot measure was passed in reaction to a decision by the California Supreme Court earlier in 2008 overturning the state’s ban on same-sex marriages, which allowed roughly 18,000 same-sex couples to marry in California during the short window prior to the election. The Supreme Court has since upheld those marriages as valid, though new marriages can not be recognized as a consequence of the proposition. The state also passed a law following the passage of Prop 8 that allows the state to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside of California during that same short window.

Arguing for the proponents of Prop 8, Charles Cooper argued that the interest groups would be given standing if this were a state court case, while Justices weighed whether or not the same standard ought to apply in this Federal Court matter.

Ted Olson (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Ted Olson, arguing for the plaintiffs, focused on the lack of precedent for such an intervention by an interest group, and claimed finding in favor of the Prop 8 proponents and granting their right to appeal would mean, essentially “amending” the California Constitution. He also argued that allowing Prop 8 proponents to take the place of the state in the case would set a dangerous precedent undermining the authority of the California Attorney General to make such decisions.

“Initiative proponents are elected by no one,” Olson told the justices, as reported by Adam Bink of Courage Campaign and Kate Kendell of the Center for Lesbian Rights. “Proponents took no oath to represent the people.”

When asked what the particular interest the proponents of Prop 8 had in continuing to defend the case, Charles Cooper responded to the justices, “Our interest is to protect and defend our fundamental right to propose initiatives. We have to defend that.”

In response, the justices asked “Doesn’t that right arise before the initiative is qualified?”

“This court has never recognized any distinction between before and after enactment,” Cooper responded. “That wouldn’t make any sense. What the proponents have a right to do is propose valid constitutional amendments. It is inescapable that they then have the right to defend that measure, before OR after enactment.”

However, before his time expired, Ted Olson did his best to counter Cooper’s claims.

“They sure spent a great deal of time and money, and exercised their power to ‘propose and enact.’ What they’re asking for is the power to represent themselves because of a particularized interest, which they don’t have,” Olson argued. “My understanding of California law and case law is that the legislature doesn’t have the power to defend legislation in court unless it specifically deals with the legislative power itself. There is no case, and Cooper agrees there is no case, in which the legislature has the power the proponents are claiming here. I think the initiative power is important, but the constitution of California fundamentally limits the power of the initiative and initiative proponents to exercise their right to propose and defend, that’s it.”

After the hearing, representatives from the American Foundation for Equal Rights were confident and expressed pleasure with the hearing.

“Good justices ask hard questions,” Olson said after the hearing, according to Bink and the Courage Campaign. Olson expressed pleasure with the Supreme Court justices, but emphasized he believes that no matter which direction the Supreme Court decides, the opponents of Prop 8 will prevail.

“We’re sure the US Supreme Court will agree with us,” Olson concluded.

Legal Director from Lambda Legal, Jon Davidson seemed to concur.

“It is often impossible to predict from the questions asked by appellate judges how they will rule and today was no different,” Davidson said in a statement. “All of the judges on the California Supreme Court asked probing questions and seemed concerned about the implications of any decision they might make. We continue to hope that the Court will ultimately decide that small groups of unelected individuals who are answerable to no one should not be able to act on behalf of the state.”

However, Shannon Minter legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who has argued before the California Supreme Court in favor of same-sex marriage, struck a more cautious tone when discussing her reaction to the hearing with veteran LGBT community journalist, Karen Ocamb.

“I was concerned by the tenor of many of the justices’ questions today,” Minter told Ocamb. “The court has a responsibility to enforce the California Constitution, which gives elected state officials—not private initiative sponsors—the authority to decide whether to appeal a federal court decision invalidating a state law.”

Minter continued, “Both conservative and progressive elected officials have occasionally exercised that discretion in the past by choosing not to expend state resources to defend invalidated measures. Permitting special interest groups to usurp that decision-making authority would dramatically change the current law and take a giant step down the road of turning California into a mobocracy.”

Minter expressed concern that a decision in favor of the Prop 8 proponents could have far reaching effects, going beyond just LGBT issues.

“I was disappointed that, with some notable exceptions, too many of the court’s questions today did not address the specific legal questions before them, but rather seemed to glorify the initiative process in the abstract and to abdicate a searching examination of the California Constitution in favor of emotional appeals to ‘the people.’ The initiative process is already frequently misused to target vulnerable groups, due in part to the Court’s past reluctance to enforce any meaningful limits on the process, even when those limits are mandated by the California Constitution,” Minter concluded.

“I sincerely hope the Court does not compound that mistake by now giving initiative proponents an unprecedented new power to step outside of their proper legislative role and usurp the power that our Constitution gives only to elected state officials in the executive branch.”

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Rep. Tammy Baldwin is expected to announce her candidacy for U.S. Senate shortly after Labor Day. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Anti-gay Republican to challenge Baldwin for Senate

MADISON, Wisc. — Though she’s yet to announce plans to run to replace outgoing U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) is already the target of a Republican hopeful for the seat.

According to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, while announcing his candidacy Monday morning, former Rep. Mark Neumann said, “I believe our opponent is Tammy Baldwin and I believe it is essential that we bring Tammy Baldwin’s record to the forefront.”

Neumann made headlines for once telling the Christian Coalition he would not hire a gay staffer.

“If somebody walks in to me and says, ‘I’m a gay person, I want a job in your office,’ I would say that’s inappropriate, and they wouldn’t be hired because that would mean they are promoting their agenda,” he said during the 1997 speech. “The gay and lesbian lifestyle [is] unacceptable, lest there be any question about that.”

Equality Calif. gets tough on teaching bill opponents

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Calling them “hate groups,” Equality California got tough this week in an effort to undermine efforts by conservative groups in California to repeal a state law mandating the inclusion of LGBT history and disabled peoples’ history in California curriculum.

“Last week the Family Research Council, a virulent anti-LGBT organization with ties to the Ku Klux Klan and recognized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, joined the effort to overturn the FAIR Education Act in California and released a video message to fundamentalist churches on behalf of the campaign,” the strongly worded Equality California press release began.

“I don’t believe any fair-minded parent would find friends of the KKK a trustworthy protector of their children,” said Roland Palencia, executive director of Equality California in the statement.

‘Prop 8’ plaintiffs ask for tapes to be released

SAN FRANCISCO — Lawyers for the group seeking to overturn California’s anti-gay Proposition 8 in federal court sought this week to have videotapes of the trial testimony released publicly, saying defendants are afraid of being exposed for putting up a “weak case.”

The videotapes belong to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and lawyers for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the group sponsoring the case, have argued that they should be a matter of public record. The lawyers for the plaintiffs successfully argued their case and saw Proposition 8 overturned, which ended same-sex marriage in California. The case is now being appealed.

Proponents of Proposition 8 have been seeking to keep the videotapes from being released.

“The Proponents have been utterly unable to explain why the public should be barred from seeing and hearing for themselves what happened in a public trial,” said lawyer Theodore Boutrous in a release from the organization. “The real reason … is [they] do not want the world to see the powerful evidence we submitted showing that Proposition 8 flatly violates the Constitution and the extraordinarily weak case that they put on trying to defend this discriminatory law.”

Kressley, Chaz Bono tapped for ‘DWTS’

LOS ANGELES — One of America’s most popular TV shows, “Dancing With The Stars,” will welcome next year the transgender son of Sonny Bono and gay icon Cher.

The show announced that Chaz Bono will be among the stars dancing this year. Bono will also be joined by former “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” Carson Kressley for the 13th season of the show.

“With both gay and transgender contestants represented on this upcoming season, ABC will send viewers a strong message about the diversity within the LGBT community,” said Herndon Graddick, senior of director of programs for media watchdog group, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “At a time when transgender representation in the media is sorely lacking, Chaz Bono joining the cast is a tremendous step forward for the public to recognize that transgender people are another wonderful part of the fabric of American culture.”

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Ted Olson and David Boies at the Cato institute (Blade photo by Michael Key)

The two lead attorneys in the widely followed lawsuit seeking to overturn the California ballot measure that bans same-sex marriage in the state and the attorney who successfully argued the Supreme Court case that overturned anti-gay sodomy laws were honored this week in Washington.

The Cato Institute, an LGBT supportive libertarian think tank, held a forum on Wednesday that featured presentations by conservative Republican lawyer Theodore Olson and Democratic attorney David Boies, who have teamed up to fight Proposition 8.

D.C.’s Whitman-Walker Health, formerly known as Whitman-Walker Clinic, was scheduled to present Olson, Boies and Washington attorney Paul Smith with its Joel A. Toubin Memorial Award at a reception Thursday evening. The award recognizes their legal work in support of the rights of LGBT people.

Smith was the lead attorney challenging state sodomy laws in the 2003 case known as Lawrence v. Texas, in which the high court ruled that laws banning intimate sexual relations between people of the same sex in the privacy of their home were unconstitutional.

In interviews with the Blade, Olson and Smith each said they were hopeful that the Lawrence decision would provide an important legal foundation for the Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8 when that case reaches the high court possibly within the next two years.

Olson worked as U.S. Solicitor General defending federal laws before the Supreme Court during the administration of President George W. Bush. Prior to becoming solicitor general, Olsen represented Bush in a highly controversial Supreme Court case credited with deciding the outcome of the 2000 presidential election in favor of Bush over then Vice President Al Gore in a dispute over challenged ballots in Florida.

Olson told the Blade he doesn’t see his role in seeking to overturn what he calls a “highly discriminatory” ballot measure as a contradiction to his status as a conservative.

“I think those of us in the political world who care about individual rights and individual liberty and individual freedom and treating our fellow citizens with respect and decency and fairness and understanding ought to be in favor of changing laws that discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation,” he said.

The California-based American Foundation for Equal Rights, which retained Olson and Boies to challenge Prop 8 in court, was initially questioned by some LGBT groups and progressive legal experts for taking on too great a risk in seeking to bring the case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Some argued that the conservative-leaning court could very likely uphold Prop 8’s constitutional standing, setting a potentially harmful legal precedent.

Olson said he and Boies considered those concerns when they decided to take on the case.

“We felt it was important to go forward because we’ve been approached by persons who felt their constitutional rights were being denied to them,” he said. “And we felt that as lawyers, we couldn’t say, well we’re not going to represent you or we’re not going to try to vindicate your constitutional rights.”

Smith said he’s hopeful that the Supreme Court will uphold a lower federal district court ruling in Massachusetts, which declared as unconstitutional a provision in DOMA that bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages legalized by states.

He said he and other attorneys seeking to overturn the DOMA provision banning federal recognition of same-sex marriages received an important boost when the Justice Department decided earlier this year to no longer defend the law in court. President Barack Obama has said he favors the full repeal of DOMA by Congress.

The president said he also believes DOMA is unconstitutional and determined the Justice Department should end all efforts to defend the law in court. The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has since stepped in to arrange for legal counsel to defend DOMA as it makes its way to the Supreme Court.

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Everyone packed into U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker’s courtroom in San Francisco on Jan. 11 knew they were watching history.

On one side of the court sat lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies, partisan foes in Bush v. Gore. Now the straight pair pledged to prove that same-sex couples deserved the fundamental right to marry. For them, the meaning of the U.S. Constitution is at stake.

On the other side sat Republican attorney Charles Cooper and a handful of supporting lawyers. It was what some might consider a strange sight. After the passage of Proposition 8 in California, the loss of same-sex marriage in Maine, New York and New Jersey and the gloating by ProtectMarriage affiliates such as the National Organization for Marriage, the anti-gay forces looked weak. In fact, throughout the trial, they portrayed themselves as David fighting Goliath.

Retired philosophy professor Linda Hirshman, reporting for The Daily Beast web site, pronounced the matchup a modern day Scopes trial.

“In the confrontation between an irrefutable religious standard and a worldly empirical survey, the challenge to California’s prohibition on gay marriage reveals a fissure that runs throughout American history: Are we modern or are we medieval?” Hirshman wrote. “Do Americans live together in a social contract for our material well-being, or are we following ancient traditions of how to live, because tradition is a better teacher than reason? This issue does not surface often in the United States, but it did most powerfully almost 90 years ago in Scopes vs. the State of Tennessee, the ‘monkey trial.’ And it did so again this week.”

The Scopes trial pitted the teaching of secular science and intellectual freedom against traditional Bible-based Christian fundamentalism. It’s a clash as old as St. Thomas Aquinas’ “Summa Theologiae” and as fresh as the 2005 debate over whether creationism should be taught alongside the theory of evolution in the Kansas public school system.

For Prop 8 supporters, the trial is now posited as if freedom of religion itself is at stake. In a Jan. 26 column, “Putting Religion on Trial?”, NOM president Maggie Gallagher wrote that Olson and Boies are trying to invalidate the religious beliefs of millions of voters who hold that homosexuality is a sin and marriage is a sacrament between one man and one woman.

“The stakes are high. And the argument they will be asking the Supreme Court to endorse is this: Only bigotry, hatred and unreason explains why anyone cares about the idea that to make a marriage you need a husband and a wife — religious views of marriage are just anti-gay bigotry,” Gallagher wrote.

Anti-bigotry is one of the central elements to proving the case that lesbians and gays have historically been subjected to discrimination and deserve equal protection and due process under the U.S. Constitution. Walker, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court will decide if the plaintiffs proved that gays are a “discrete” minority, possess an “immutable” characteristic and are powerless to protect themselves in the political process.

“We said on the first day of [the] trial we would prove three things,” Boies said at a news conference after the evidentiary trial testimony ended Jan. 26. “Marriage is a fundamental right; that depriving gays and lesbians the right to marry hurts them and hurts their children; and there was no reason, no societal benefit, in not allowing them to get married.”

Evan Wolfson, founder of Freedom to Marry, said the arguments were compelling.

“Our side powerfully showed that California’s selective stripping away of the fundamental freedom to marry from a vulnerable minority lacked any legitimate reason, and harms families while helping no one,” he said. “Fourteen years and tens of millions of dollars after our Hawaii case, the anti-gay opponents had literally nothing new to put forward to defend the discriminatory denial of marriage.”

Olson and Boies entered reams of documents into evidence and put 17 witnesses on the stand. The plaintiffs spoke movingly about their loved ones and a slew of expert witnesses contributed a wealth of knowledge to the evidentiary record.

In some cases, the testimony was almost ironic. For instance, in his opening statement, Cooper said “the purpose of the institution of marriage, the central purpose, is to promote procreation and to channel narrowly procreative sexual activity between men and women into stable enduring unions. … [Marriage] is a pro-child societal institution.”

But Harvard University professor Nancy Cott noted that, “There has never been a requirement that a couple produce children in order to have a valid marriage. … And known sterility or barrenness in a woman has never been a reason not to allow a marriage. In fact, it’s a surprise to many people to learn that George Washington, who is often called the father of our country, was sterile.”

ProtectMarriage only called two of their five witnesses to the stand. So Olson and Boies introduced the depositions of the dropped witnesses into evidence, which appeared to bolster the plaintiffs’ case.

New Yorker contributor Margaret Talbot wrote that Boies’ cross-examination technique “was a little like watching your cat play with his food before he eats it.”

Indeed, Boies seemed to make mincemeat of official Prop 8 proponent Hak-Shing William Tam, who was called as a hostile witness. Tam stood by claims that gays were 12 times more likely to molest children, “based on the different literature that I have read.”

ProtectMarriage called California’s Claremont McKenna College political science professor Kenneth Miller, whose credibility as an expert on gay political power was mightily challenged by Boies on cross examination. Boies also read from a book Miller co-authored that ballot initiatives or “direct democracy can actually be less democratic than representative democracy.”

ProtectMarriage’s second witness, David Blankenhorn, was so combative, the judge reprimanded his demeanor. Boies had Blankenhorn, author of “The Future of Marriage,” go down a list of “possible positive consequences” of same-sex marriage and mark the statements with which he personally agreed.

Among the many positive statement with which Blankenhorn agreed were, “gay marriage would extend a wide range of the natural and practical benefits of marriage to many lesbian and gay couples and their children,” and “same-sex marriage would likely contribute to more stability and to longer-lasting relationships for committed same-sex couples.”

Chad Griffin, chair of the board of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, said he was thrilled that the trial put “those who attempt to provide justification for discrimination” under oath for the first time.

“I think they found in a court of law, it’s quite different from on a political campaign where you can say anything and get away with it,” Griffin said. “In a court of law, you’re under oath and you actually have to tell the truth — and you have to answer to those truths under oath. And I think that proved difficult for the defendant-interveners in this case.”