Prop 8 Update

Shaker MorganP emails, which I am sharing with permission:

Here's a piece on the maddening recent developments in the Prop 8 Hearings, wherein we learn that supporters of the California ban on same-sex marriage have sought to invalidate the plaintiffs' case on the grounds that gay people have tons of political power and are not a politically oppressed group.

Except for the fact that, as the influence of the Prop. 8 campaign and the resulting state law indicates, they don't have enough power to gain access to their own constitutional rights.

The "expert witness" that the defenders of Prop 8 called to the stand, Kenneth Miller, a professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College, testified that "Gays and lesbians are able to achieve positive outcomes in the political process," a line evidently delivered without a trace of irony despite its being delivered amidst a trial in which the legislative centerpiece is gays and lesbians having failed to achieve a positive outcome in the political process.

Such ludicrous mendacity would be hilarious, if so many people's basic equality didn't hang in the balance.