U.S. Supreme Court Throws Gay Marriage Opponents a Temporary Bone

by Michael Jones · 2010-01-11 08:50:00 UTC
Topics:

U.S. Supreme CourtUPDATE: The Courage Campaign just released statistics on the campaign to petition Judge Vaughn Walker to televise the trial. In an amazing show of strength, 138,542 people (including thousands of Change.org members) asked for the Prop 8 trial to be televised, while only 32 objected. Amazing. That said, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling described below still stands, until further notice.

The U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on the question of televising the proceedings of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal marriage equality court case set to begin today in California. Their decision? It's temporary, but for the time being, there will be no recording, broadcasting, or capturing footage with your iPhone inside the courtroom.

It's a temporary bone to opponents of gay marriage, who have practically given birth to chickens trying to stop cameras from appearing inside Judge Vaughn Walker's courtroom. Funny how homophobes like to hide behind closed doors, except when it comes time to vote.

The temporary, two-day halt on recording the trial will be reviewed over the coming days, after the U.S. Supreme Court gives the matter "further consideration." The only Justice to object to the temporary ban was Justice Stephen Breyer, who apparently thinks that opponents of gay marriage should have to be accountable for their discrimination. Or, well, in legal terms, Breyer doesn't see any irreparable harm in making the proceedings available on YouTube.

Let the drama begin! We're only fifteen minutes into the trial, and already there's more tension than an elevator ride with Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien.

Photo credit: dbking

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Pope Calls Gay Marriage Attack on Creation
NEXT STORY:
Bullied high schooler convinces MPAA to change ‘Bully’ rating to “PG-13”

COMMENTS (5)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.