Post Testimony Press Conference
January 30, 2010
By Julia Rosen
Following the wrap of testimony in the trial, the American Foundation for Equal Rights legal team held a press conference. The audio from it was interesting, but I was holding out posting it until the video became available.
Here is the legal team talking about the case and in particular the defense’s witnesses. Speakers include Chad Griffin, David Boies, and Theodore (Ted) Boutrous.
Boutrous in particular discusses how the Supreme Court again and again has ruled that marriage is a fundamental right, letting even murderers behind bars to get married and people who are complete strangers.
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30 Comments
1.
Chris | January 30, 2010 at 3:56 am
This stuff is amazing. I can't help but become a bit hopeful.
2.
Richard | January 30, 2010 at 3:57 am
Thank you,Thank you, Thank You!
3.
kate | January 30, 2010 at 3:59 am
Im sorry, Can a link for this be posted? For some reason my computer doesn't support the Scribd stuff. 🙁 Or tell me where to google to find it? I'd really really super appreciate it.
And I'm so happy you guys are still posting things as we wait for the outcome of this trial. I've been obsessed with this stuff and am so grateful for the coverage.
You guys are amazing.
4.
Sean | January 30, 2010 at 4:04 am
Try this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8weQiZj-lQ&fe…
If that doesn't work, just go to Youtube and search for a video called "Perry Trial Press Conference – 1/27/10"
Hope that helps.
5.
Urbain | January 30, 2010 at 4:01 am
Awesome conference. Thank you, Julia, for sharing it!
6.
Jenny O | January 30, 2010 at 4:12 am
It seems like there was a Q&A after this. Any chance of getting a video or transcript of that?
7.
couragecampaign | January 30, 2010 at 4:16 am
Rex Wockner has more on this video which is audio only.
-Julia
[youtube =http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6qJ5eywzVU&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
8.
Larry Kenneth Little | January 30, 2010 at 4:16 am
I can't help but feel that gay people will finally get equal rights and the right to marry inspite of all the hatred of three powerful religious groups. Nothing gave me more pain when I realized Matthew Shepard became another victim of religion's hatred and all I could feel was revulsion that this was the moral high ground.
I know that Clarence Thomas and Scalia already have their pens poised to support Proposition Hate. Our supreme justice department has five rightwing Republicans who favor continuing DADT and DOMA and I have to wonder if justice will every be dispensed again without the taint of extreme partisanship.
9.
Ronnie | January 30, 2010 at 4:30 am
Prop Ha8te ………….YA DONE!
"None, Zero!" – – Boies is a rockstar!
10.
Straight Ally #3008 | January 30, 2010 at 5:02 am
"I was responsible for tearing down a lot of the defense…I had more fun." – David Boies
Boo-yah!
Guys, you must check out this anime-meets-Schoolhouse Rock video about the trial, "You Can't Turn the LIghts Off" by HitRECord.
11.
Doug in Long Beach | January 30, 2010 at 6:02 am
OMG that was awesome. I LOVE IT!! I put a link to it on my facebook page!
12.
Shelley | January 30, 2010 at 6:11 am
I'm glad to see there is still information coming around even after the trial has ended. Also my local paper did an article today that has a lot of comments added. http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2500983.ht…
13.
Lora | February 1, 2010 at 9:03 am
Shelley…The Bee is my local paper too. I read all the comments on every article pertaining to this issue. Amazing…at the bigotry that is still out there…where I live. Sometimes I get so mad reading those comments, but then someone comes along and says exactly what I would want to. Interesting reading, to say the least.
14.
Richard W. Fitch | January 30, 2010 at 6:28 am
This case has already put me on information overload!! Can't wait to hear the closing arguments. Thnx to all for your dedication to keeping this in front of all of us.
Love, Richard
15.
Rikaishi | January 30, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Just think, in these two weeks you've probably absorbed more information then any six average people would in their entire lifetime, two thousand years ago.
In knowledge, culture and ethics we as a species have come a long way, and society is going to keep progressing whether these ideologues like it or not.
16.
Ronnie | January 30, 2010 at 3:04 pm
I agree I graduated in September and I'm trying to start my own business but I have been a little board and feel like i was I lost my debating and conversation skills. I have really gotten the chance to flex those muscles thanks to this trial and blog.
It's been 4 years since I took poli.sci. and 3 since business law and all the political jargon and legal jargon(very little) that I know has come rushing back in.
I too am on information overload.
17.
DK | January 30, 2010 at 6:55 am
marriagetrial.com first video is UP!!!! 🙂
18.
Richard | January 30, 2010 at 7:01 am
DK, I clicked on the link, but nothing happened. All I could get was the archived trailer.
19.
DK | January 30, 2010 at 2:56 pm
@Richard…try the MarriageTrial channel on Youtube.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDmA_n5ygS4&fe…
Hope this works…I posted on another thread on this site and the video seems to have come up.
20.
Nick Griffin Miller | January 30, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Yet more to share with my family, friends and acquaintances Thank you everyone for continuing to share these items as they appear!!
21.
Wade MacMorrighan | January 31, 2010 at 1:48 am
Hey guys, I've been running into something rather infuriating, as a Historian, lately. As we all know, NOM and other Christo-Fascist groups are screaming that we want to "re-define" marriage! However, I have had to take many of these people to the side and explain to them precisely what the historical and ethnographic record shows… That in many cultures (ancient and modern), and in many time periods throughout history, marriages were not strictly limited to "one man and one woman". (Hell, "marriages" used to be entirely arranged where the "bride" was tendered as the property of her father and spouse; should those also be defended by NOM as "Traditional Marriage"?) And, the three quick examples i cited were that some Roman nobles would enter into a life-long marriage with a spouse of the same gender, and it was acknowledged as such by the City-State; that among the Chuckchi shamanic peoples of Asia (east of Siberia and Mongolia), they greatly revere their Gay tribes men to this day, believing them to be natural born Shamans…they are greatly revered as spiritually powerful, and are greatly sought after as a husband or spouse by some of the other men with whom they fall in love; and among the Native Americans of the plains an identical practice occurred with an equal reverence for their Gay citizens where they were deeply sought after as a spouse by other males in their community (at least until the pre-reservation period!). Yet, despite this unequivocal evidence of marriages between members of the same gender, recognized by their society and cultures AS a "marriage", they [pro-Prop 8 defenders and locally grown hate groups like LUV Iowa] openly scoffed and me, balking at the evidence, as they decried it with the following inconceivable retort, "Those don't *count* as real marriages!" What? Why not? Is it because they're not Christian, I wonder? Well, if so, then it might surprise them to learn that the late Harvard Prof. of History, John Boswell, actually uncovered evidence wherein the Church (which had NO interest in solemnizing marriages until the mid-13th. century, only 700 years ago!), albeit rarely, *did*, in fact, solemnize over the marriages between two adult males. Still, the fact that they would scoff at unequivocal evidence from other cultures that allow for two men or two women to engage in a culturally valid/ legal marriage is deeply offensive!
Anyway, I've been running into this an awful lot, so I was wondering if someone might have any ideas why, despite the historic evidence, they keep declaring that only their "definition" of "marriage" is a valid one, in light of well-known and documented historic and cultural examples from across the planet? I'm just looking for something that could help me sleep at night. *sigh*
Take care,
Wade (Iowa)
22.
Ronnie | January 31, 2010 at 2:13 am
Just keep this in mind Wade, Bigots only see what they want to see and hear what they want hear…and the rest never happened. The would be better of Blind, Deaf, and Dumb(which they already are)….The wouldn't have to see u and they wouldn't have to hear us.
But since they can hear and see us, that is what their agenda is…..to get rid of us. They are new Hitler and we are the Jews….oh wait…..He killed LGBT people also.
23.
Wade MacMorrighan | January 31, 2010 at 2:34 am
Yes, Ronnie, I don't disagree with you (I've OFTEN thought that what Mags' was endorsing is precisely what occured in Nazi Germany!), but what I seriously have an impossible time comprehending is HOW someone can say that we are "re-defining" marriage, which has been (so they claim), "one man and one qwoman in every culture on the planet for thousands, and thousands of years", yet… When the are confronted with unequivocal evidence of historical and cultural marriages between members of the same gender, they dismiss these examples of, somehow, not "counting" as "real marriages"! But, for what reason?
After all, they SAY that "marriage" has been, in every culture and in every age, "one man and one woman" yet they dismiss the hiostorical evidence when it's presented to them because they do not regard either those cultures as having what they call "marriages" for ANYONE, or else they are adopting Mags' talking point, that any legally or culturally recognized marriage between two persons of the same gender "arte not real marriages".
It's all absolutely baffling and infurriating to me… *sigh*
I mean, they emphatically declare that their vision of history is the only one that has ever existed, yet…when confronted with historic data that challenges their statements (which they can easily look-up), they automatically mitigate it's relavence as being 100% unimporftant and, in some "reality", not actually an "example" for evidence that refutes their non-researched and faith-based POV.
I, for one, would like to see a campaign started by professional historians and anthropologists to contact and show to Republicans that are making these claims that, in fact, cultures throughout history have, in fact, legally endorsed marriages between members of the same gender! SOMEONE has got to "get through" to them, right? The gods know that *my* rep. Clel Baudler, here in Iowa refuses to accept any position other than his own religious conviction, which he is trying to sell to every town that he represents through their local papers (and, sadly, my local paper refuses to publish anything I have submitted to them refuting his views on historic and legal grounds!).
24.
Wade MacMorrighan | January 31, 2010 at 9:37 am
BTW, whenever Church’s hold book burnings, and other things of that sort, why doesn’t anyone in the media draw Nazi-parallels, huh? ;o)
25.
Richard W. Fitch | January 31, 2010 at 2:24 am
Let's face it – to most 'kristianists', the 'traditional marriage/famiy' is the model from the 50s-60s of Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver. It is the idyllaic vision of the nuclear family – working Dad, stay-at-home Mom and near perfect offspring. Another outside those limits is both abnormal and repulsive. Never mind single Moms deserted by fathers, mothers left without husbands and Dads as the price of war, etc. You will never change the minds of these hardcore bigots in a million years.
26.
Polydactyl | February 3, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Beautiful stuff, Wade. I wish this information was more readily available. The ’50s left a horrendously damaging imprint upon our culture, people actually believe that the reality portrayed by Father Knows Best is how things were. That is propoganda for you.
I expect their unforgivable (and unethical) denial of any facts that contradict their stance stems from pure tautology – “Marriage is only defined as one man and one woman, therefore, there has never been any marriage that was not one man and one woman!” They don’t recognize these arrangements as a marriage because they don’t fit their concept of what a marriage is!
Circular, infuriating and completely logically bankrupt.
27.
David | January 31, 2010 at 2:42 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8weQiZj-lQ This is the video link to UTUBE of the video with Picture and Sound! WOW! Incredible!
28.
Debbie | January 31, 2010 at 5:33 am
Have been reading the book "Committed" by Elizabeth Gilbert & she does an amazing job of reviewing the history of marriage in Chapter 3. It is short & precise & to the point. In the end, her point, which is well documented, is the marriage has ALWAYS evolved and that is why we still have "the institution" today. Read it, it is a great argument for exactly what we are fighting for here today!!!! As the Mom of a son who is gay I thank the people who are fighting for these very important changes.
29.
SpoonmanTX | February 3, 2010 at 12:09 am
Just curious… is there anyone else besides me that has a huge crush on Chad Griffin?
30.
Ronnie | February 3, 2010 at 7:12 am
hehehe…YES!!!!!