Yesterday’s hearings certainly contained some helpful material for marriage equality advocates. For instance, as Shannon Minter notes at Pam’s House Blend,

In some of the most dramatic evidence presented to date, Professor Segura commented upon a number of documents that provided a shocking glimpse of just how deeply the Catholic and Mormon churches were involved in supporting Prop 8 and intertwined with the official pro-Prop 8 campaign. “One document sent by executive director of the Conference of Catholic Bishops to bishops in California thanked the Catholic Conference for its “unusual” efforts in supporting Prop 8 and applauded the Mormon church for its “financial, [...]]]> The Perry hearings have been underway for a few days now, and yesterday’s hearing contained some particularly interesting material.

Yesterday’s hearings certainly contained some helpful material for marriage equality advocates. For instance, as Shannon Minter notes at Pam’s House Blend,

In some of the most dramatic evidence presented to date, Professor Segura commented upon a number of documents that provided a shocking glimpse of just how deeply the Catholic and Mormon churches were involved in supporting Prop 8 and intertwined with the official pro-Prop 8 campaign. “One document sent by executive director of the Conference of Catholic Bishops to bishops in California thanked the Catholic Conference for its “unusual” efforts in supporting Prop 8 and applauded the Mormon church for its “financial, organizational, and managerial contributions” to the campaign.” Other documents detailed the Mormon Church’s extensive collaboration with the campaign, including mobilizing more than 20,000 volunteers and coordinating messaging and fundraising. Professor Segura testified that this level of coordination among powerful religious groups to target a particular group was unprecedented.

All of this is correct; and it’s also correct that the paper trail being established (including yesterday) will be immensely helpful for marriage equality advocates.

However, an overstated report of an “explosive” document about plausible deniability has also been making the rounds. That report is incorrect. Its genesis lies in the somewhat circuitous reporting process for the hearings. Because the hearings are not being televised (thank you, SCOTUS), various observers have been posting short summaries of the proceedings online. One of the best sources has been the Courage Campaign’s Prop 8 Trial Tracker. However, in this particular instance, the summary-and-paraphrase approach led to a chain of claims, some of which were ultimately incorrect.

The initial Courage Campaign trial report stated that:

S: Reads document. Says Brother Jansen said LDS not to take lead, but to work through Protect Marriage. SLC had teleconference with 159 of 161 stake leaders in CA. Goal is $5million at $30 minimum donation per head.
S: Director Holland highlighted the luxury of having Mark Jansen key committees and that eh will received direct communicate (sic) from him.
S: With respect to Prop. 8 campaign, key talking points will come from campaign, but cautious, strategic, not to take the lead so as to provide plausible deniability or respectable distance so as not to show that church is directly involved. We might look at religious belief as source of opposition and think that some folks would vote their religious conscience, but we would not know that this sort of direct church power is engaged. I have never seen this level of coordination in a political campaign.

Note that this description is limited: It is one attendee’s summary of one witness’s testimony about a document. There’s no claim that the document contains this language in the CC report. There may be some ambiguity about what exactly the document said. However, within hours various marriage equality supporters were describing the plausible deniability language as a direct quote. (See, e.g., Queerty blog). The same plausible deniability language has now been posted by Andrew Sullivan (also as a direct quote).

The published transcripts make clear, however, that the plausible deniability language was not a direct quote from the document being examined. Rather, it was a characterization of that document, by the plaintiffs’ expert witness. Take a look at the transcripts yourself (you’ll want to go to pages 155-160).

The Prop 8 campaign document being discussed does contain some detailed instructions on coordinating the church and political sides. The language quoted in the transcript includes this: “Brother Jannson emphasized that we are not to take the lead on this proposition but to join in coalition with ProtectMarriage.com. Salt Lake City conducted a teleconference with 159 of 161 Stake presidents in the State of California, and told the presidents LDS are involved in this issue but are not to take the lead.”

The plausible deniability quote comes from later questions to plaintiffs’ expert witness, Gary Segura. When asked about the reasons for the particular language in the coordinating document, professor Segura suggested: “But there was this cautious strategic not-to-take-the-lead notion so as to provide a — I don’t know, plausible deniability or respectable distance between the church organization per se and the actual campaign.”

That’s the source of the quote — and as such, it is factually incorrect to attribute it to an internal church or Prop 8 campaign document.

I’m all for supporting marriage equality through discussion and legal action. The Perry hearings have already provided a variety of helpful materials (as noted in Shannon’s summary), and I expect that more helpful material will come out in future hearings as well. But mischaracterizations don’t advance marriage equality; and there are enough accurate arguments and facts in favor of equality, that mischaracterizations are unnecessary anyway.

I was interviewed earlier today about the issue, and the anchor asked a few questions like “What happened?” and “What’s next?” In the interview environment, I could give only quick sound bite answers. But those are complicated questions which deserve deeper discussion. So in this post, I’ll talk about what has happened in the marriage equality movement over the past year; and in a follow up, I’ll talk about what’s next for marriage equality.

Post-Prop-8 events fall into six major categories:`

1. The necessary clarification on [...]]]> A year ago today, California voters adopted Proposition 8 by a 52-48 margin. Last night, voters on the other side of the country voted the same way, by almost exactly the same margin.

I was interviewed earlier today about the issue, and the anchor asked a few questions like “What happened?” and “What’s next?” In the interview environment, I could give only quick sound bite answers. But those are complicated questions which deserve deeper discussion. So in this post, I’ll talk about what has happened in the marriage equality movement over the past year; and in a follow up, I’ll talk about what’s next for marriage equality.

Post-Prop-8 events fall into six major categories:`

1. The necessary clarification on interim marriages. Prop 8 proponents argued that those marriages were invalid; the Cal Supreme Court rejected that argument in its May 2009 decision, effectively grandfathering in those marriages.

2. The state law constitutional challenges. Advocates including the NCLR, the City of San Francisco, and the Attorney General made a variety of state law challenges to Prop 8, including that it was a revision (I explain this to lay audiences as meaning “too big to be passed by the referendum process”) and that it violated fundamental rights under the state constitution. Those claims were dismissed by the Cal Supreme Court in May as well. Thus, the May decision upheld Prop 8 in general, but also grandfathered in the interim marriages.

3. The federal law challenges. This is the lawsuit filed in Federal court by Ted Olson and David Boies. It recently passed the first hurdle, as the judge rejected the motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The suit is ongoing, but it widely viewed as a longshot.

4. Related news in California, mostly backlash-related. There was a massive backlash after the November election, with highly visible protests and vigils, and some violent or otherwise illegal incidents (like vandalism). Activists also used disclosure laws to bring economic sanctions of sorts, posting information on the internet to facilitate boycotts against Prop 8 supporters. Some activists have also argued for legal sanctions over Prop 8 campaign issues, in particular that churches and other organizations violated campaign disclosure laws. There has been a visible counter-backlash as well, as churches and individual supporters have argued that they are being unfairly targeted for exercising their own rights of speech and voting.

5. Political developments in other states. This is where things have gotten really interesting. On November 5th of last year, only one jurisdiction in the country (Massachusetts) allowed same sex marriage. A year later, there are now five (and it was awfully close to six, with Maine.) Despite Prop 8, marriage equality has been on the upswing.

Iowa and Connecticut courts ruled in favor of marriage equality. Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire pioneered a new trend with marriage equality bills passed by the legislature. This potentially undercuts the highly effective democratic-legitimacy rhetoric that same sex marriage was being forced on the public by unelected judges. (But see Maine, in future discussion.)

Maine and New Hampshire are especially important, for different reasons. Maine’s law went to the voters today, and while it failed there are very interesting ramifications of the Maine vote (which we will see in the follow up post). New Hampshire pioneered a compromise model with built in conscience protections for religious officiants and organizations. The model of legislatively passed marriage equality bills with conscience protections may be the future of the movement.

6. Finally, developments in federal law. Here, it has largely been the sound of silence. There has been recent movement on some gay rights issues (the recent hate crimes bill) but there has been deafening silence on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). As long as DOMA is on the books, marriage equality cannot exist, because federal law (social security, tax, immigration) does not recognize same sex marriages. President Obama made a campaign promise to repeal DOMA. So far, there has been no movement on that front.

That’s my recap of what has happened over the past year in marriage equality (or, what I would have told the interviewer if I had had 20 minutes). In a follow up post, I’ll address the equally complicated question of, “what next?”

The California Supreme Court has announced that it will issue an opinion in three cases challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 26, 2009.

I’ve previously blogged some analysis of the case. Like most other observers, I expect that the court will reject both the revision/amendment challenge and the fundamental rights challenge, but will not retroactively nullify the 18,000 marriages that took place before November. That would be, in effect, a partial victory for both sides.

I guess we’ll find out one way or another this Tuesday.