(published concurrently on the Sac Bee NorCal Voices blog)
I have been fretting a bit over the effort of gay marriage proponents to strike down Prop 8 in the current trial in federal court. Like many, I’m skeptical of the willingness of the predominantly right-wing stacked federal courts to render Proposition 8 unconstitutional.
Yet, it hit me today: since this trial has been going on, every single day there’s a front page or front section storie on gay marriage in the Sacramento Bee. So the trial not only keeps the issue front and center, it also adds new dimensions, angles, thought and evidence because the plaintiffs in this case (the anti Prop 8/pro gay marriage side) have put on a lot of great witnesses. And, if the Bee’s reporter is to be believed, the other side’s witnesses are so far pretty weak like today’s Institute for American Values guy who basically just states that gay marriage will drive up the rate of heterosexual divorce and doesn’t even bother to present trumped up evidence for his assertion, let alone real evidence.