Like I Said

Well, despite the fact that Prop 8 witness David Blankenhorn recently admitted to me that he "never felt physically threatened" by giving his testimony, Charles Cooper (who is the attorney for the "marriage defense" side) recently claimed, once again, that releasing tapes of the Prop 8 trial would cause his witnesses to become too scared to testify in the Prop 8 appeal.

While Judge Ware, on September 19, had ordered the recordings to be released, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has just ordered them to remain sealed for now.

Via SFGate (see that link I included? How courteous of me!), Cooper claimed:

"Ware's ruling 'threatens deep and lasting harm to the integrity and credibility of the federal judiciary,' Charles Cooper, lawyer for Prop. 8's sponsors, said in asking the appeals court for an emergency stay.

Unsealing the recordings would expose pro-Prop. 8 witnesses to 'a serious and well-substantiated risk of harassment or worse' and would cause them to refuse to testify at any future proceedings, Cooper said.

He did not present any supporting statements from the witnesses. Prop. 8's opponents, on the other hand, are circulating a comment from the sponsors' chief witness, traditional marriage advocate David Blankenhorn, who said in an online exchange last week that he 'never felt physically threatened' by the presence of cameras at the trial. (emphasis added)."

So, yeah. That "online exchange" bit?

So, yeah, that online exchange was with me. And, I totally reported that tidbit already. Last week. Twice.

I mean, sure, the more important fact is that Charles Cooper's little narrative about how scared the Prop 8 witnesses are (and David Blankenhorn is one out of two of them) is looking more and more disingenuous every day, but... still.

Would it have been difficult to include a link to my article?

I mean, Blankenhorn's admission is a Big Deal. It undercuts the argument that the Prop 8 witnesses are Very Scared Of The Big Bad Gay Meanies- because if the witnesses aren't actually scared like the "marriage defenders" say they are, there's no actual reason to keep the Prop 8 trial recordings sealed. Indeed, in our conversation, Mr. Blankenhorn didn't even seem to be aware of the fact that he was supposed to be scared of marriage equality advocates. When he expressed ignorance regarding the whole sealing-of-the-tapes matter, I had to fill him on that little detail.

Really, I'm surprised more people haven't picked up on my conversation with Blankenhorn, particularly in the LGBT political blogosphere.

But then again, I'm not that surprised.

The "LGBT" blogosphere is dominated, with a few exceptions, by cis, white gay men who are deemed (or deem themselves) the spokesmen for "LGBT" rights. While many feminist blogs regularly cover and advocate for LGBT issues, I have not experienced a parity of reciprocity with some of the more popular gay bloggers covering feminist or gender issues. Some are even outright hostile to feminism while, ironically, having their work regularly promoted at some feminist blogs.

Everyone has the right to set their own agenda at their own blogs, so my point is that Mainstream Gay is missing out analyses and observations from feminism and the feminist blogosphere that could really push LGBT rights forward.

For instance, a person simply cannot understand, much less rebut, the "gender complementarist" argument against same-sex marriage, without thinking about gender on more than a superficial level. At one blog, I once saw a gay man fumble his way through a "rebuttal" at an anti-gay blog where he tried to insist that same-sex couples were "complementary" like how men and women supposedly are because there's usually one butch and one femme in a same-sex relationship.

LULZ. Sure.

When one only considers same-sex marriage from the prism of how unfair marriage bans are to The Gays, one doesn't often pick up on the fact that many narratives about "traditional marriage" are also incredibly sexist, misandric, and misogynistic.

Like, if more Americans knew what version of "traditional marriage" they were "defending," maybe they wouldn't be so eager to defend it.

Anyway, I know I'm being vague in my accusations here, and that's intentional. I'm not trying to stir up a blog shitstorm. I'm just encouraging more prominent gay bloggers to be better allies. For the sake of social justice, I think Mainstream Gay would do better if it popped the Everything Gay bubble and broadened the blogrolls.