But they didn’t say “this case is not a good test run for televising federal courts”. They *could* have said that. They could have rejected televising the trial for any number of dry, neutral, procedural reasons. But they didn’t. They chose to reject while specifically endorsing the Yes on 8 People’s utterly groundless claim that televising a trial would cause “irreparable harm” to those testifying against gay marriage, fully endorsing the idea that gay people are both harmful and politically powerful, automatically negating Olsen’s assertion that we are a suspect class. I really don’t see how they could’ve made it any clearer how they’re going to rule.

I guess it rains an awful lot where you live, eh?

I’ve read that ontinually cloudy and rainy skies causes very severe depression.

What is your prediction with respect to the end of the world?

Sometime in the very near future, I would suspect.

I know see that that for you, your opinions equal facts and that you grapple with discerning the difference between an informed guess and reality.
Getting a PhD in ESP must’ve been tough, man.

Gotcha. Ok, Now that you factually disarmed and resolved those pesky Prop8 questions I REALLY need your 20/20 vision on the SOTU address tonight and the result Superbowl. Hurry! Help! I need to know who to place my bets on! Thanks.

They could, of course, just give up if they realize that they do not have a case.

I discussed this case with my foreign-born Mom, a trial which she’s been avidly following along. She said something echoed here, that other than “religious” arguments, there are no “sound” logical reasons to oppose same-sex marriage. The bias against us comes from many factions, but those people all seem to have nothing but the Bible or other religious text to justify their “animus.”

With SCOTUS being filled by Catholics and many members of Congress beholden to the religious fundies, I worry that we may never in my lifetime reach a favorable national outcome for people wishing to marry their same-sex partners. I now regret sleeping through the poly sci class that explained USA federalism.

Justice just ain’t for us, here, it seems.
Time for me to see what’s cooking over on the intellectually less taxing Adam Lambert thread! ;- §

Then “Is there any truth or logic behind the idea that the P8 supporters are purposefully doing poorly or “throwing” the case?”
The answer is almost certainly “no.” You don’t get to introduce new evidence on an appeal, so if you botch the initial trial, you are stuck with a lot of baggage that you can’t drop. Read http://legal-dictionary.thefre.....peal+(law) and specifically “The function of the appellate court is limited to a review of the trial record sent up from the lower court and the briefs filed by the appellant and appellee. Amicus Curiae briefs, if permitted by the appellate court, also become part of the record on appeal. The trial record, sometimes called the record proper, must show the pleadings that initiated the case, the complete transcript (in cases of jury trial) of lower court proceedings, the verdict, and the entry of the final judgment or order. The appellant must clearly demonstrate that the grounds for review had been raised and unsuccessfully decided upon at the trial level and, therefore, prejudicial error exists to warrant the reversal of the decision of the lower court.”

I gotta’ agree. However, one must wonder why the news media is not jumping all over this and siding with us and portraying prop 8 as a grossly unconstitutional move that has allowed a religion, essentially, to impose it’s views onto the Nation, and specifically onto a minority?!

For example, I took a year long course in the political economics of the U.S. followed by another course in comparative political economics comparing the U.S. to at the time Japan, Brazil, Germany, China, etc.

In other words, I get to know exactly how our system is slowly fucking us over.

I am pessimistic about the S.Ct. here. I think this court is trying to narrow equal protection analysis. When you think about it, even the citizen case has implications for equal protection in that in essentially says some speech is more important than others if you have enough money versus those who don’t. And, there is the affirmative action case in which they distorted the statute for the purpose of narrowing equal protection. I just don’t see them announcing a new suspect class here.

We forget, but the S.Ct. that decided Brown v. Board was a fluke, and there were decades of case law supporting the overturn of Jim Crow. There is no such case law here, and the court is packed with conservatives who have been vetted to make certain they are true blue sociopaths.

As I said on a related thread, Boies nailed MIller’s logic and “facts.” If I’m reading the tea leaves right, and Prop H8 is struck down [or whatever the right verb is], then how would the case move to SCOTUS? My apologies if that’s already been explained and I missed or didn’t grasp the answer.

Is there any truth or logic behind the idea that the P8 supporters are purposefully doing poorly or “throwing” the case? I’ve heard a few people intimating that, but can’t fathom their reasoning. Or their willingness to drink a 6 buck pitcher of light beer!

No worries about your English, VoDongCung. We understand you perfectly.

The DOMA said protect traditional family but is actual creatting these kind of family of man and woman to distroy the traditional family.

Your point is well made.

Now, if only Maggie Gallagher and NON could get that through their thick skulls.

The ban and discriminate Gay marriage force gays marry to straight. So there are million families of Gay+Straight without love at all. No body think these families last long, and will left children behide with single parent.

The DOMA said protect traditional family but is actual creatting these kind of family of man and woman to distroy the traditional family.

Friend in here, please tell the Judge or the plaintif lawyer. Very Thanks

Changing either of them would be like going to the store to return half dozen eggs and getting six in return…………

U need to understand the sheer political chaos that gay marriage can cause.

Substitute black civil rights in that sentence.

Many people are still horribly opposed to gay marriage.

Substitute black civil rights in that sentence.

That’s why Lyndon B. Johnson signed the black civil rights law back in 1964.

SCOTUS is not stupid.

Not a bit. Just rabidly anti-homosexual and homophobic.

This is not about feelings its politics.

Wrong. It’s about civil rights and equality for all. But, unlike Lyndon B. Johnson, Mr. Obama lacks the guts to do anything about equality and chooses, instead, to just remain silent on all of the issues linked to equality for LGBT people.

Well, except wait until we had five definite YES votes on the court.

What it will come down to, if it fails, is the fact that the Fascist Five totally decided the case before it even hit the damn courts. And there would have been nothing we could do better about it.

As to why I think SCOTUS would rule narrowly rather than issue a sweeping opinion that settles things once and for all: I don’t know why. I just know they’ve been doing it that way for a loooooong time.

Slow down – he said he got some papers to review from the Prop 8 people. He did not say the Prop 8 people wrote those. The Prop 8 lawyers possibly paid someone to do a literature search and they may have given what they found to Miller, who noted what they had looked up versus what his search had found independently.

Don’t be too hard on Miller – he said that gays are getting more political influence (true) and that they matched the Prop 8 side on campaign funding (true but it ignores timing issues) and that there is a fuzzy line between “differentiation” and “discrimination” (also true). He also wasn’t sure if DOMA was an example of discrimination versus differentiation.

Of course, getting more political influence doesn’t mean you have enough influence to get something necessary to protect your legitimate interests done. Differentiation is not necessarily discrimination – almost any law will treat people differently depending on whether they are in a situation the triggers the law – but if the differentiation consistently works against you or was designed to put a particular group at a disadvantage, that is a sign of discrimination. Also, a group can be treated more or less equally according to the law but still be subject to a serious level of discrimination due to widespread prejudice among the general public.

Now, Miller’s statements may not have helped the Prop 8 side very much if at all, but expert witnesses are not supposed to be arguing for one side or the other – they are supposed to be providing objective information with differing opinions being mostly the result of our understanding of some issue being currently incomplete (so lawyers will shop for experts to find those whose opinions are most likely to help the lawyers’ clients when there is a difference of opinion among experts in a particular field).

Just because the Prop 8 side appears to be having trouble finding witnesses that really help their side is not the fault of the witnesses. It is rather an indication of a weak case.

@FakeName: Could you see them striking “every such amendment in the country” and leaving DOMA somehow in place, since it’s a state amendment in question, or would it go as well? (If it did get left out, surely voiding it separately would be a relatively easy next case)