GOODBYES

5 Things We’ll Miss After The Prop 8 Trial Ends

Perry V. Schwarzenegger, the federal Prop 8 trial, heads for the end tomorrow as Judge Vaughn Walker welcomes both sites to return to court for closing arguments. And while there aren’t any televised instant replays to miss, we’re still gonna to miss the thrilling intrigue — and non-stop Twitter action — it provided. You can read an excellent recap of the trial’s high points here, but we’ve decided to recount the aspects of the trail that we grew to love — from the adorable gays to the bat shit crazy things said by our opponents. Parting is such sweet sorrow!

The boring re-enactments

When filmmakers John Ireland and John Ainsworth said they were going to do a day-by-day renactment of the entire trial, we hoped for high drama, a creative undermining of the Supreme Court’s refusal to televize the trial, and maybe the discovery of a new gay star! Instead we got two weeks of mega-boring YouTube videos. But at least Michael Urie, Alan Cumming and Cheyenne Jackson did some dramatic readings from the trial.

To be fair, Ireland and Ainsworth only made boring videos because actual courtrooms look and sound nothing like Law & Order. In the end, we got an earnest attempt to keep us informed and a subversive attempt to “televise” the trial even when the Supreme Court refused.

The crazy anti-gay witnesses

Between William Tam’s super-scientific claim that homosexuals are 12-times more likely to molest kids and “expert” witness David Blankenhorn’s report citing George “Rentboy” Rekers, we couldn’t have asked for a nicer bunch of loonies to help make the case FOR gay marriage. Wait, what side were they testifying for again?

Judge Vaughn Walker’s beard

Maybe it’s just because I’ve always longed for an older father figure to validate my feelings, but I will most certainly miss seeing the silver fox Judge Vaughn Walker form vowel sounds with that beautiful mouth of his. Yeah, I know he’s an esteemed high court judge, but he’s also one of us and a total GILF. Even the court sketches of him are sexy.

The history lessons

Who knew that whenever bigots screamed about homos wanting to “redefine marriage” that they were right? The testimony from Harvard history professor Nancy Cott showed us just how much The M-Word has changed over time. It’s gone from being a financial arrangement and a way to keep blacks and whites apart to a social privilege that a lot of folks define just as they and their Bibles wish. That’s reassuring; we always knew our parents’ fucked-up relationships weren’t “traditional marriages” by any stretch of the imagination, but at least they were in good company, historically speaking.

The cute couples

Who can forget the adorable lesbian Kristin Perry who called her partner Sandra Stier, “the sparkliest person” she had ever met? Or Paul Katami who said that not being allowed to marry his partner Jeff Zarrillo after so many years was like “putting a Twinkie at the end of a treadmill and saying, ‘You can only have a bite.'” These brave gay men and women gave beautiful human faces and voices to the gay marriage movement while managing to work in pet names and mentions of creay fillings into their testimony… nice.

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