Despite supposedly winning our appeal in the Ninth Circuit to protect the privacy of our internal Prop 8 campaign records, the trial judge has still forced us to hand over literally tens of thousands of pages of sensitive campaign memos, emails and other documents to the plaintiffs. After sifting through our internal documents for facts they think aid their case, they had them labeled as trial exhibits and added to the court record.Wow. If Judge Walker rules against the marriage amendment, then I hope the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, not exactly known for being friendly towards conservative causes, overturns Walker, who has apparently thumbed his nose at them. Regardless of how one thinks of the marriage amendment, how can this be right?So if the Yes on 8 campaign has been forced to open up its internal campaign records for this court trial, then shouldn’t also the No on 8 campaign have to do so, too?
Well, although we filed a motion some time ago asking the court to order the “No on 8” campaign to disclose to us the same types of documents as those we had to disclose to them, the court has refused to rule on our request and thus we have been prevented from examining even one single document from the opponents of Prop 8.
Another example: For months the plaintiffs have been practically foaming at the mouth to get our campaign manager, Frank Schubert, onto the stand to be questioned as a witness. Having come up empty-handed in their search for evidence of "anti-gay bias" in campaign records, they suddenly dropped their plans to call Mr. Schubert to the stand.It sure is interesting what you can find when you consult other sources besides the "maintstream" media, which is actually pro-neutering of marriage.But when we announced plans to call Mr. Schubert as our own witness to help defend Prop 8, they filed a motion to prevent him from testifying at all. They got their chance to question Mr. Schubert on the stand but when they saw the whites of his eyes, they blinked.
Previously: Your Papers, Now!
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ReplyDeletePlayful, here's another data point:
ReplyDeleteThe plaintiffs subpoenaed Jim Garlow,, pastor of the Skyline Church, for the purpose of questioning him about what he preached.
"Putting Pastors on the Stand":
"Pastor Garlow told me that he wanted to testify: he has nothing to hide. But his attorneys told him, absolutely not. They did the research and verified this point: never in the history of the United States has a pastor been put on the witness stand and questioned about the content of his preaching. The attorneys were adamant: don’t agree to go on the stand. They thought it would be a terrible precedent. Something about the First Amendment. Free Exercise of Religion, Freedom of speech and all that.
So the plaintiffs’ attorneys entered a video of Garlow’s church into evidence instead."
I gather that the anti-8 litigators have been unable to compel Garlow to testify, and they probably knew it was unlikely he'd set the precedent.
Their strategy is to emphasize the political optics for propaganda purposes. Here their message will likely be that Garlow backed away from defending what he preaches and thus his no-show imputes the content of the video. Or somesuch.
As you comb the news sources for material to blog, you might keep an eye open for this strategy and the theme that may be developing in the anti-8 side's political messaging.