Prop. 8 backers: trial videos would be misused

[alp227]

Source: SF Chronicle

Sponsors of California's ban on same-sex marriage are urging a federal appeals court to keep videos of last year's trial locked up, saying their release would let gay-rights advocates flood the Internet with one-sided snippets of testimony.

"Video recordings of such proceedings would present limitless opportunities for partisans to make one side look good and the other side look bad," backers of Proposition 8 told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Monday.

They argued that unsealing the videos would endanger pro-Prop. 8 witnesses and provide "little public benefit," because the trial was held in open court and transcripts are available. But their adversaries said there's no good reason to hide a completed trial from public view.

"What transpires in the courtroom is public property," lawyers for same-sex couples said, quoting a 1947 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. They contended Prop. 8's sponsors were using unsubstantiated claims of witness intimidation to mask their "true concern that the public will see for itself the utter lack of evidence or persuasive argument" in their case.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/15/BA851LVJUS.DTL

[24601]

1. Correct - but not relevant. Wasn't it Scalia that said essentially when

you enter the public arena, your ass hangs out for all to see? Of course I said it more eloquently.

[jberryhill]

6. Video is banned in the Supreme Court

[nightscanner59]

2. Now, using snippets is only okay for major corporate media

outlets like FOX...

[msongs]

3. the Mormon church doesn't want the world to see how it operates nt

[jberryhill]

7. Nothing new there /nt

[scorpiogirl]

4. Fuck them, they started it.

They also didn't want their contributions made public either. Too bad for them. Everyone should know who supported that bigoted crap.

[SoapBox]

5. Amazing...they are in full scale panic, that the world sees for itself how stupid...

their argument was.

"What transpires in the courtroom is public property," lawyers for same-sex couples said"

Exactly.

BUT...the Baggers and Haters want to call it their way...laws, precedent, etc. be damned!