Olson Closing Arguments Update:
Heterosexual persons who marry the person of their choice if they are a child molester if they are a wife beater if they are in prison for 15 murders they can marry the person of their choice. Individuals in this case may not marry the person of their choice.
I would like with Your Honor'spermission now to play a couple of excerpts from the testimony by the four plaintiffs starting with plaintiffs Katami and Zarrillo explaining why they want to marry because they can say it better than I can.
Katami in video tearfully describing his partner:
"The love of my life. I love him probably more than I love myself"
Kristin Perry in video:
"There's something so humiliating about everyone knowing you want to make that decision and you don't get to"
Olson:
If we had the time yhonor I could not present more compelling argument than replaying whole testimony of four plaintiffs
Expert Cynthia Cott in video:
When slaves were emancipated they flocked to get married.
Olson:
In 2005 there were 37,000 of California's children living in households headed by same-sex couples. The evidence was uncontradicted curing during this trial and overwhelming that the lives of these children would be better if they were living in a marital household. Even Mr. Blankenhorn, the proponents' witness, the proponents' principal witness agreed with that proposition.
Blankenhorn's Testimony:
"Q. And you say in that sentence, in that sense, insofar as we are a nation founded on this principle, we would be more, emphasize more, American on the day we permitted same-sex marriage than we were on the day before. And you wrote those words, did you not, sir?
"A. I wrote them, wrote those words.
"Q. And you believed them then; correct?
"A. That's correct.
Q. And you believe them now; correct?
"A. That's correct."
Olson:
This has been a great education. I think not just to the people in this room but the people who read this record.
...at the end of the day, as I said, I felt we didn't need this trial but at the end of the day I think it's an enormously enriching and important undertaking.
From Twitter:
Random observation, totally cool to see so many people engaged both here in courthouse and on-line. Big history folks.
Olson:
W
here in the world in 1954 did the Supreme Court come up with this right that didn't exist right before then?
From Twitter:
Olson handling sharp and hard questions by Walker very well. The guy is as advertised
Olson again:
I think it was doctor Meyer who said this. No one as expires as a child to grow up and enter into a domestic partnership. But they do aspire as children to grow up and be married.
Of Judge Walker (on Twitter):
His questions don't seem too aggressive thus far
Olson:
The latest words from the counsel for the proponents is we don't know. We don't know whether there is going to be any harm. And I would submit that we have always done it that way. It's a traditional definition of marriage, which is something that we have always done it that way is the same -- is a corollary to the because I say so. It's not a reason. You can't have continued discrimination in public schools because
you have always done it that way. You can't have continued discrimination between races on the basis of marriage because you have always done it that way.
They are not going to abandon their marriage. And they are not going to stop having children because their next door neighbor has a marriage with a person of the same sex. That is not going to happen.
Proposition 8 discriminates on the basis of sex in the same way that the very law struck down in loving discriminated on the basis of race. They could marry
whoever they want unless that person was the wrong race.
there is no evidence that one couple or one pair of individuals in this state or in this country will decide I'm not getting married because those people are getting married. There is no evidence of that. And there is no evidence that there will be a diminished pro creative instinct, God forbid, because people are allowed in the privacy of their homes to enter into their intimate relationship because they want family like someone else.
So if you have an analysis of the common sense of people, and without, even without all these experts, what were they thinking? I think the clear he is evidence of that is protect our children from learning or being taught that gay marriage is okay. And that means that gay people's marriage is not okay. And that means gay people are not okay.
Now, you can have a religious view that this is not acceptable. You can have a religious view. It was true in the loving case. The argument was made that it's God's will that people of different races not be married. It's in the briefs and it was in the testimony in this trial, that people honestly felt that it was wrong to mix the races, that it would dilute the value of the race and do all of these terrible things. People honestly felt that way. But they were -- they were -- they were permitted under the constitution to think that. But they are not permitted under the constitution to put that law, that view, into the law, and to put
that view into the constitution of their state in order to discriminate against individuals.
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