Previously: Prop 8 Trial, Day 10: Marriage Ban Supporters Call First Witness
Related: Watching As The Chronicle’s Stance On Gay Equality Starts To Turn, SF Chronicle Columnist: Bigotry Not So Bad
Elsewhere: Defense Begins to Make Its Case in Prop 8 Trial NBC Bay Area, Lawyers for Prop 8 Sponsors Call First Witness KCBS, The truth behind the Prop. 8 lies SFBG, Prop. 8 defense: Gays don’t lack clout Chron
Updated 6:46 PM:Sponsors of Proposition 8 presented their first witness in defense of the voter initiative in federal court in San Francisco today, bringing to the stand a professor who testified that gays and lesbians are a potent political force in California.
Kenneth Miller, an assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, testified on the 10th day of a trial on a lawsuit challenging the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
Two same-sex couples claim the measure, approved by voters in 2008 as Proposition 8, violates their federal constitutional rights. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker will decide the case without a jury.
Miller’s testimony was intended to refute the plaintiffs’ claim that homosexual rights deserve the highest level of legal protection, in the same way that racial minority rights have been safeguarded by courts, because gays lack political power and have suffered discrimination based on a characteristic they can’t change.
He said gays and lesbians have access to many of the “key determinants of political power” in California, including money-raising ability and alliances with other groups such as the Democratic Party, corporations, labor unions, newspapers and celebrities.
“Gays and lesbians have been able to raise substantial funds to support their political causes,” Miller told Walker.
He said that during the Proposition 8 campaign, “It was startling to me to see the amount of money raised on both sides of the election, but the $43 million raised by opponents exceeded the amount raised by the Yes on 8 campaign.”
Supporters of the successful measure raised $40 million.
Miller, a co-editor of a book entitled “The New Political Geography of California,” ticked off a list of politicians, corporate leaders, labor unions, celebrities and newspapers supporting gay rights in California.
They include Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown, California’s two U.S. senators, a majority of the Legislature and Silicon Valley leaders, Miller said.
Twenty-one of the state’s 23 largest newspaper opposed Proposition 8 in 2008 and the other two took no position, he testified.
Miller said creating alliances with other groups has historically been a way that minority groups in the United States exert power.
“In the American political system, basically everybody has to form alliances to achieve political goals,” Miller said.
He said many states now have laws forbidding discrimination against gays.
Under cross-examination from plaintiffs’ attorney David Boies, Miller admitted that some of the materials he relied on in his testimony were supplied by lawyers for Proposition 8 rather than his own research.
Miller also agreed that the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy discriminates against gays and lesbians and that no other minority group in the nation is dismissed from the armed services on the basis of its status.
In another exchange with Boies, Miller said Proposition 8 treats homosexuals “differently” from heterosexuals but refused to say the initiative amounted to invidious discrimination.
“My view is that Proposition 8 makes distinctions in that it discriminates between the two different categories, but invidious discrimination – that’s another question,” Miller said.
The professor also acknowledged that he wrote in a 2001 Santa Clara Law Review article that the initiative process “undermines democratic opportunities and violates procedural guarantees.”
The Proposition 8 sponsors are seeking to use Miller’s testimony on political power to counter the views spoken by Stanford University political science professor Gary Segura on behalf of the plaintiffs last week.
Segura testified that gays and lesbians lack “a meaningful degree” of political power.
He said that gays and lesbians have been targeted nationwide in ballot initiatives, including Proposition 8, more than any other group and have lost 70 percent of more than 150 ballot measures presented to voters throughout the country since the 1970s.
Proposition 8, enacted by a 52 percent majority of voters, overturned a California Supreme Court ruling that had said the state Constitution provides a right to same-sex marriage.
The current trial is the nation’s first federal trial on a U.S. constitutional challenge to a ban on gay and lesbian marriage. The two couples contend Proposition 8 violates their rights to due process and equal protection.
Testimony in Walker’s Federal Building courtroom is scheduled to end Tuesday and the judge will hear closing arguments at a later date.
Tuesday’s trial session will begin with continued cross-examination of Miller. The Proposition 8 sponsors’ second and possibly final witness will be David Blankenhorn, founder of the New York-based Institute for American Values, who will testify about family structure and marriage as an institution.
4:34 PM: Sponsors of Proposition 8 began their defense of the voter initiative in federal court in San Francisco today with testimony from a professor who said that gays and lesbians are a potent political force in California.
Kenneth Miller, an assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, testified on the 10th day of a trial on a lawsuit challenging the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
Two same-sex couples claim the measure, approved by voters in 2008 as Proposition 8, violates their federal constitutional rights. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker will decide the case without a jury.
Miller was the first witness to take the stand on behalf of the sponsors of Proposition 8.
His testimony was intended to refute the plaintiffs’ claim that homosexual rights deserve the highest level of legal protection, in the same way that minority group rights have been safeguarded by courts, because gays lack political power and have suffered discrimination based on a characteristic they can’t change.
Miller said gays and lesbians have access to many of the “key determinants of political power” in California, including money-raising ability and alliances with other groups such as the Democratic Party, corporations, labor unions, newspapers and celebrities.
“Gays and lesbians have been able to raise substantial funds to support their political causes,” Miller told Walker.
He said that during the Proposition 8 campaign, “It was startling to me to see the amount of money raised on both sides of the election, but the $43 million raised by opponents exceeded the amount raised by the Yes on 8 campaign.”
Supporters of the successful measure raised $40 million.
Miller, a co-editor of a book entitled “The New Political Geography of California,” ticked off a list of politicians, corporate leaders, labor unions, celebrities and newspapers supporting gay rights in California.
They include Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown, California’s two U.S. senators, a majority of the Legislature and Silicon Valley leaders, Miller said.
Twenty-one of the state’s 23 largest newspaper opposed Proposition 8 in 2008 and the other two took no position, he testified.
Miller said creating alliances with other groups has historically been a way that minority groups in the United States exert power.
“In the American political system, basically everybody has to form alliances to achieve political goals,” Miller said.
He said many states now have laws forbidding discrimination against gays.
Under cross-examination from plaintiffs’ attorney David Boies, Miller admitted that some of the materials he relied on in his testimony were supplied by lawyers for Proposition 8 rather than his own research.
Miller also agreed that the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy discriminates against homosexuals and that no other minority group in the nation is dismissed from the armed services on the basis of its status.
The Proposition 8 sponsors are seeking to use Miller’s testimony to counter an opposing view presented by Stanford University political science professor Gary Segura on behalf of the plaintiffs last week.
Segura testified that gays and lesbians lack “a meaningful degree” of political power.
He said that gays and lesbians have been targeted nationwide in ballot initiatives, including Proposition 8, more than any other group and have lost 70 percent of more than 150 ballot measures presented to voters throughout the country since the 1970s.
“Initiatives have been used to roll back gains by gays and lesbians over and over again,” Segura said last week.
Proposition 8, enacted by a 52 percent majority of voters, overturned a California Supreme Court ruling that had said the state Constitution provides a right to same-sex marriage.
The current trial is the nation’s first federal trial on a U.S. constitutional challenge to a ban on gay and lesbian marriage. The two couples contend Proposition 8 violates their rights to due process and equal protection.
Testimony is scheduled to end on Tuesday and Walker will hear closing arguments at a later date.
