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Prop. 8 Trial Blog: Emotional testimonies fill first day

By Tue Tran, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, on January 11, 2010 11:59 PM

By Tue Tran, Co-Editor-in-Chief – (Photo Courtesy of Robert Galbraith of REUTERS)

The Proposition 8 trial began Monday morning after the US Supreme Court blocked its broadcast, even with the delay, on YouTube until Wednesday while the justices examine the issue.

The plaintiffs in the case Perry vs. Schwarzenegger – those who are against Proposition 8  – are being represented by Theodore Olson, the former US solicitor general under George W. Bush. Those who support Proposition 8 are being represented by Charles Cooper, assistant attorney general under Ronald Reagan.

Both sides presented opening statements this morning, starting a little after 9:30 a.m. in San Francisco.

“This case is about marriage and equality,” Olson said. “The plaintiffs are being denied both the right to marry and equality under the law,” according to a transcript from the American Foundation for Equal Rights Web site.

Even during the opening statement, Judge Vaughn R. Walker started asking Olson questions such as whether or not the state should issue marriage licenses, according to Mercury News. Olson responded by saying that the state will never stop issuing marriage licenses. Olson later mentioned President Barack Obama’s parents, who would not have been able to marry had the US Supreme Court not ruled that bans on interracial marriages were unconstitutional.

In his opening statement, Cooper touched on how Proposition 8 was passed by voters by 52 percent and how domestic partnerships already grant many rights to same-sex couples. Walker asked Cooper about mixed-race couples and the evolving societal definition of marriage, and Cooper did not believe that they were the same issue, citing the preservation of traditional marriage.

A little before noon, testimonies began from gay individuals who wished to marry their partner. Plaintiff Jeff Zarrillo started and talked about how he wanted to experience the same joy that his parents and married brother did.

Zarrillo’s partner Paul Katami also took the stand, and when he was cross-examined by Brian Raum, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, the issue of teaching young children about homosexuality came up. “For me, Proposition 8 had nothing to do with children,” Katami said. “It was a diversion… a tactic which does not sit at the core of the issue.”

A lesbian couple later took the stand separately. Kristin Perry spoke about how she and her partner, Sandy Stier, were married in San Francisco in 2004, only to have their marriage invalidated. When Judge Walker asked Stier if it would be sufficient for the state to no longer use the term “marriage,” she responded, “I believe it would because there wouldn’t be anything different” in how her relationship would be viewed in the eyes of the state.

The day ended with Nancy Cott on the stand, an historian from Harvard University who focuses on American marriage history, which Cott spoke about. In her opinion, domestic partnerships are not equal to marriage. “There is nothing like marriage except marriage.”

The topic of the equality of domestic partnerships to marriage was raised multiple times by Walker. Those who oppose Proposition 8 see them as clearly separate. “I do not think domestic partnerships are an acceptable alternative to gay marriage,” Kelsey Gasseling, President of the GLBTQ Leadership Council and A&S ’11. “Not only does marriage give people more rights as a couple, it comes with a very strong and meaningful social status that a ‘domestic partnership’ does not.”

When discussing societal acceptance of interracial marriage today, Walker asked why the topic of same-sex marriage should be brought to the court and not decided upon by society as it evolves. “Walker brought up a very good point,” Gasseling said, “when he said that there have been previous cases that were taken out of the hands of the ‘body politic,’ as he put it. I understand that everyone opposed to same-sex marriage has their own reasons. But regardless of religious arguments or other ‘pro-child’ arguments, etc., denying the status of marriage to certain members of society (while granting it freely to others) is completely unconstitutional.”

The trial will continue Tuesday.