So much for what proponents of marriage equality thought would have been a good idea:
The Supreme Court has indefinitely blocked cameras from covering the high-profile federal court trial on the constitutionality of California’s ban on same-sex marriage.
The high court split 5-4 today, with the conservative justices in the majority.
Now in its third day, the trial in federal court in San Francisco is over the state’s voter-approved ban on gay marriage.
The presiding judge, Vaughn Walker, had proposed posting recordings of the trial on the court’s Web site after several hours of delay and allowing real-time streaming of the trial for viewing in other federal courthouses in California, New York, Oregon and Washington.
Gay rights advocates were calling Judge Walker’s earlier ruling a step towards openness and transparency. Proposition 8 supporters (who hope to uphold the voters’ ban on same-sex marriage in case you’ve been on another planet and missed the back story) were clearly — and probably rightly — afraid their supporters would fear being outed and skip testifying. A thoughtful person who lives in my house suggested it could be a bad precedent.
I personally was looking forward to looking in. But the Supreme Court didn’t consult with any of us. So now we’ll wait to see what they have to say when, as expected, this case gets to their chambers on appeal.
Supreme Court indefinitely blocks cameras from Prop. 8 trial – latimes.com.