Prop 8 forum: Olson & Boies speak - You MUST read this stuff!

[WillParkinson]

Prop 8 forum: Olson & Boies speak

Last night, the New York Times’ gay and lesbian affinity employee group hosted a Q&A session with Prop 8 superlawyers David Boies and Ted Olson.
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I saw Joe Sudbay from Joe.My.God and Paul Schindler from Gay City News there – also Andy Towle and Corey Jonson from Towleroad (go there for a great interview with the lawyers), as well as representatives from the local offices of most of our major gay organizations, the wonderful David Mixner, and many, many Times employees (including publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who sat in front of me).

news-Boies-Olson-top

Olsen and Boies were amazing – articulate, warm, witty, thoughtful. Everything they seemed to be in the courtroom. What did they talk about? They were interviewed by NYT Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak and so were asked some tough questions.

There was the usual fare: How did this unusual partnership come about (they’re old friends; Olsen, who defended Bush in Bush v. Gore, thought this was an important issue that bridged the Republican/Democrat divide and so asked Boies – who defended Gore – to join); Is this the right moment for the case, considering the makeup of the Supreme Court (there was going to be a case brought anyway and they have the resources to do it right).

Needless to say, both lawyers are super confident that they will win the current, district-level case, the appellate case – and even the Supreme Court.

But there were three things that surprised me.

Liptak asked if the Supreme Court ruling about not videotaping and broadcasting the Prop 8 trial said anything about how the Justices would rule in the final case, or how they felt about the judge.

No, Olsen said. It’s just that the Supreme Court is very shy about having cameras in THEIR court room and they feared that allowing these cameras in a constitutional case would make it very hard for them to avoid cameras in their own court.

But instead of saying that, they sided with the Prop 8 backers who said they feared intimidation were they to be videotaped. That decision, Olsen said, was “fundamentally wrong.” First of all, all Prop 8 witnesses were videotaped in deposition – Olsen and Boies are free to post those tapes to the web, and may do so. Second, all the pro-Prop 8 witnesses were people who had made speeches, given money, and generally made themselves into public figures.

http://www.365gay.com/news/prop-8-forum-olson-boies-speak/

[Divine Discontent]

1. "we don't like being watched while we work" - judges

that's what it sounds like to me. bit cowardly, don't ya think?

[dsc]

2. in fairness there are more than a few kooks out there who might take a shot at them

if they were more well known. I don't think that overrides the public's rights here but I do think that is their reasoning.

[ShadowLiberal]

3. I hope they're right about 'nothing to lose' in front of the Supreme Court

From the article.<snip>
The second thing that surprised me: Olsen and Boies believe that this case can have no bad outcome.

If the Supreme Court rules against us, they said, the Justices are likely to decide that whether gay marriage is permitted should be left up to the states.
</snip>
Given the number of cases both of them have argued in front of the supreme court, and their success rates, I would think they'd be better at guessing how the court is likely to rule then the rest of us, I hope they're correct about that.

[offog]

4. Very interesting ...

that the Proposition 8 backers "feared intimidation were they to be videotaped." I've read plenty of stories about gays being beat up and bullied, but I have yet to come across any stories about that happening to gay bashers.

I think Prop. 8 backers are afraid of public scrutiny of their "reasoning" for opposition to same-sex marriage. They're afraid that they won't be able to avoid being seen as bigots.

Some years back, I read a book of political commentary which at one point commented on how cruel television cameras can be. It said that one reason for the fall of Joe McCarthy is that the televised hearings of the communist witch-hunts allowed the public to see what a thug old Joe was.

This past summer, I spent a lot of time watching televised hearings into a political scandal involving Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber. Both Mulroney and Schreiber came across as evasive, insincere, and self-serving. Just reading about the testimony wouldn't have been enough to show what those guys were really like.