Prop 8 Trial Tracker

Walker upholds disclosure ruling

By Julia Rosen

Today Judge Walker upheld the ruling by a federal magistrate mandating that Prop 8 opponents (the good guys) turn over internal documents and emails to the other side. It looks like the issue over though. SFGate:

Walker’s decision could delay a verdict.

The American Civil Liberties Union, one of the three groups that must turn over the campaign materials, has said it would appeal if Walker upholds the magistrate’s order.

While it looked like it would only be a few weeks between oral arguments and the scheduling of closing arguments, it has been fights like this one that has been slowing down the process. The wheels of justice move slowly. We could be into summer by the time there is a ruling.

197074 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.prop8trialtracker.com%2F2010%2F03%2F22%2Fwalker-upholds-disclosure-ruling%2FWalker+upholds+disclosure+ruling2010-03-22+22%3A42%3A38couragecampaignhttp%3A%2F%2Fprop8trialtracker.com%2F%3Fp%3D1970 March 22, 2010

San Mateo Area High School Students Stand Up to Bigots

by Brian Leubitz

As the “Laramie Project” is performed across the nation, it frequently draws the ire of the right-wing. Frequently, the star of the freak show is none other than Topeka, KS, “preacher” Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist “Church.” And they have their sights set on San Mateo for the March 27 performance. But rather than backing down from the controversy, the students have organized a counter protest likely to dwarf the anti-gay bigots.

Hillsdale High School students are preparing for a real-life drama. They are organizing a counterprotest to an anti-gay church’s planned picketing of the school’s production next week of “The Laramie Project,” a play about the town in Wyoming near where 21-year-old Matthew Shepard was kidnapped and severely beaten in 1998 because he was gay. Shepard died a few days later from his injuries.

Members of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church are expected to picket outside Hillsdale on March 27 before the start of a performance. When Hillsdale senior Meghan Souther first learned about the church’s protest, she said, “I was a little bit shocked.”

But now she’s looking forward to it. “I’m more excited now they are coming (because) we want to show people in San Mateo and our high school that we don’t tolerate hate,” said Souther, 17, a stage manager for the play, which runs several days. (SJ Mercury-News)

Good for these students for standing up to Phelps. Phelps is a hateful, vitriolic man. He’s protested soldiers funerals, as you see in the photo above, because apparently his god is a rather offensive one who favors death and dismemberment. I’ve had my run-ins with the man, and his rhetoric is disgusting. While I support free speech, his speech nears the line, and occasionally crosses the line, where it becomes dangerous to others.

These students are right to show that their community favors tolerance and inclusion for everybody. Despite the hate speech of this cult, the response makes me optimistic for the future.

196862 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.prop8trialtracker.com%2F2010%2F03%2F22%2Fsan-mate-area-high-school-students-stand-up-to-bigots%2FSan+Mateo+Area+High+School+Students+Stand+Up+to+Bigots2010-03-22+16%3A30%3A41Brian+Leubitzhttp%3A%2F%2Fprop8trialtracker.com%2F%3Fp%3D1968 March 22, 2010

Legacy Exclusions

by Brian Leubitz

When you look at some of the anti-gay bias, there are two real kinds out there. First, you’ve got the hard biases, the marriage bans, the DADT’s of the world. But, then you have some more subtle discrimination.

Gay men and lesbians are barred from taking part in many clinical trials that deal with sexual functions and occasionally from other studies as well, researchers are reporting.

Writing in this week’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, the authors say the scientific rationale for the exclusions, if any, is not at all clear. “Researchers should be held to careful scientific reasons,” they add, “when they develop exclusion criteria that are based on sexual orientation.” (NY Times)

For many of these researchers, it’s not so much an issue of consciously excluding the LGBT community. It’s more just what has been done in the past. This may seem to be a kind of petty issue, but it has real-world implications. In some medical issues that this study reviewed, there can be differences between an opposite sex-couple and same-sex couples. Ignoring our community does us a disservice.

The fix is simple, really. Instead of just doing what has been done in the past, researchers should take a few minutes to thoroughly review their research design. Does that LGBT exclusion really impact the research or is it just there because it’s there? And that’s pretty much it.

But, then again, if we were all conscientious beings, the world would be a much better place overall.

196690 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.prop8trialtracker.com%2F2010%2F03%2F21%2Flegacy-exclusions%2FLegacy+Exclusions2010-03-21+16%3A00%3A07Brian+Leubitzhttp%3A%2F%2Fprop8trialtracker.com%2F%3Fp%3D1966 March 21, 2010

History Through the Bigot Lens

by Brian Leubitz

In some recent DADT hearings, Retired General John Sheehan came out with this whopper:

Sheehan said at the hearing that the Netherlands’ decision to “socialize” its military “led to a force that was ill-equipped to go to war.”

He added: “The case in point that I’m referring to is when the Dutch were required to defend Srebrenica against the Serbs. The battalion was understrength, poorly led, and the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to the telephone poles, marched the Muslims off, and executed them.” (Washington Post)

And if you are going to lie, why not go big? And that’s just what this general did. Thing is that not only did he revise the history of the incident, he went the additional step of applying his own misguided morals on the story. The Dutch were having none of this however:

On Friday, Dutch Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop called Sheehan’s comments “scandalous, and unworthy of a soldier.” Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said, “Toward Dutch troops, homosexual or heterosexual, it is way off the mark to talk like that about people and the work they do under very difficult circumstances.”
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Sheehan said Gen. Henk van den Breemen, former Dutch defense chief of staff, had suggested to him that allowing gays to serve openly in the Netherlands’ military had undermined its readiness. But the Dutch Defense Ministry said that van den Breemen had never expressed such sentiments and that he considered them “absolute nonsense.” (Washington Post)

It’s worth noting that the Big Lie probably actually ended up backfiring on Sheehan. As the Senate committee seemed absolutely incredulous, and Sheehan lost all credibility. It’s really telling the lengths that anti-equality forces are willing to go. The lies tell you a lot about how much they think of their actual “case.”

196467 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.prop8trialtracker.com%2F2010%2F03%2F20%2Fhistory-through-the-bigot-lens%2FHistory+Through+the+Bigot+Lens2010-03-20+17%3A22%3A22Brian+Leubitzhttp%3A%2F%2Fprop8trialtracker.com%2F%3Fp%3D1964 March 20, 2010