Thalamus Center - Early Childhood Psychological Development Growing Up Gay - M Kurylowicz: STEREOTYPES and MISINFORMATION have resulted in social and legal disadvantages for gays and lesbians. - Judge Vaughn Walker Ruling

Monday, September 6, 2010

STEREOTYPES and MISINFORMATION have resulted in social and legal disadvantages for gays and lesbians. - Judge Vaughn Walker Ruling - California Prop 8. August 4, 2010

United States District Court
For the Northern District of California

Excerpts:
https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292/files/09cv2292-ORDER.pdf

78. Stereotypes and misinformation have resulted in social and legal disadvantages for gays and lesbians.

a. Tr 413:22-414:6 (Chauncey: The “Save Our Children” campaign in Dade County, Florida in 1977 was led by Anita Bryant, a famous Baptist singer. It sought to overturn an enactment that added sexual orientation to an antidiscrimination law, and it drew on and revived earlier stereotypes of homosexuals as child molesters.);

b. Tr 1554:14-19 (Segura: Ballot initiatives banning marriage equality have been passed in thirty-three states.);

c. Tr 2608:16-18 (Miller: “My view is that at least some people voted for Proposition 8 on the basis of anti-gay stereotypes and prejudice.”);

d. Tr 538:15-539:10 (Chauncey: Chauncey is less optimistic now that same-sex marriage will become common in the United States than he was in 2004. Since 2004, when Chauncey wrote Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today’s Debate over Gay Equality, the majority of states have enacted legislation or constitutional amendments that would prohibit same-sex couples from marrying. Some have been enacted by legislative vote, but a tremendous number of popular referenda have enacted these discriminatory

measures.);

e. Tr 424:18-23 (Chauncey: “[T]he wave of campaigns that we have seen against gay marriage rights in the last decade are, in effect, the latest stage and cycle of anti-gay rights campaigns of a sort that I have been describing;

that they continue with a similar intent and use some of the same imagery.”);

f. Tr 412:20-413:1 (Chauncey: The series of initiatives we have seen since the mid-to-late 1970s over gay rights are another example of continuing prejudice and hostility.);

g. Tr 564:4-16 (Chauncey: The term “the gay agenda” was mobilized particularly effectively in the late 1980s and early 1990s in support of initiatives designed to overturn gay rights laws. The term tries to construct

the idea of a unitary agenda and that picks up on long-standing stereotypes.);

h. Tr 1560:22-1561:9 (Segura: “[T]he role of prejudice is profound. * * * [I]f the group is envisioned as being somehow * * * morally inferior, a threat to children, a threat to freedom, if there’s these deeply-seated beliefs, then the range of compromise is dramatically limited. It’s very difficult to engage in the give-and-take of the legislative process when I think you are an inherently bad person. That’s just not the basis for compromise and negotiation in the political process.”);

i. Tr 1563:5-1564:21 (Segura: “[T]he American public is not very fond of gays and lesbians.” Warmness scores for gays and lesbians are as much as 16 to 20 points below the average score for religious, racial and ethnic groups; over 65 percent of respondents placed gays and lesbians below the midpoint, below the score of 50, whereas a third to 45 percent did the same for other groups. When “two-thirds of all respondents are giving gays and lesbians a score below 50, that’s telling elected officials that they can say bad things about gays and lesbians, and that could be politically advantageous to them because * * * many parts of the electorate feel the same way.” Additionally, “the initiative process could be fertile ground to try to mobilize some of these voters to the polls for that cause.”);

j. PX0619 The Williams Institute, Chapter 14: Other Indicia of Animus against LGBT People by State and Local Officials, 1980-Present at 9 (2009): The Williams Institute collected negative comments made by politicians about gays and lesbians in all fifty states. An Arizona state representative compared homosexuality to “bestiality, human sacrifice, and cannibalism.” A California state senator described homosexuality as “a sickness * * * an uncontrolled passion similar to that which would cause someone to rape.”;

k. PX0796 Kenneth P Miller, The Democratic Coalition’s Religious Divide: Why California Voters Supported Obama but Not Same-Sex Marriage, 119 Revue Française d’Études Américaines 46, 52 (2009): “In the decade between 1998 and 2008, thirty states held statewide elections on state constitutional amendments defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. * * * Voters approved marriage amendments in all thirty states where they were able to vote on the question, usually by large margins.”

Read complete ruling: Judge Vaughn Walker Ruling - California Prop 8. August 4, 2010
https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292/files/09cv2292-ORDER.pdf

NO EVIDENCE SUPPORTS THESE [homosexual] STEREOTYPES

Judge Vaughn Walker Ruling - California Prop 8. August 4, 2010

Monday, September 6, 2010

STEREOTYPES and MISINFORMATION have resulted in social and legal disadvantages for gays and lesbians. - Judge Vaughn Walker Ruling - California Prop 8. August 4, 2010

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