Prop 8 Trial Won’t Be Filmed Next Week, So Hate Groups Can Rest Easy

Next weeks’ Prop 8 trial will not be filmed, so Focus on The Family, the notorious hate group, can rest easy. Of course, they won’t. A U.S. federal district court judge will preside over arguments Monday on whether or not recordings of now-retired federal judge Vaughn Walker’s Prop 8 trial, in which he determined Prop 8 is unconstitutional, may be released to the public.

At issue this week was an early August decision by Judge James Ware that next week’s proceedings would be televised, which drew outrage from groups like NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, Focus on The Family (FOF), and Protect Marriage.

LISTEN: Anti-Gay NOM’s New Radio Ad Admits They Were Top Prop 8 Funder (Audio)

FOF in particular stated, via its CitizenLink “news” site,

“Many pastors and other Prop. 8 supporters found themselves targeted by radical homosexuals during the campaign and afterward, prompting many to hire personal security guards in the wake of credible death threats.”

Credible death threats? Proof, please? Police reports, etc.?

Here’s what they mean by “credible death threats.” Often anonymous blog comments, like these from a court document:

• “You’re dead. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon … you’re dead.”
• “I’m a gay guy who owns guns, and he’s my next target”
• “I will kill you and your family.”
• “Oh my G**, This woman is so f — ing stupid. Someone please shoot her in the head, again and again. And again.”
• “I’m going to kill the pastor.”
• “We’re going to kill you.”
• “I warn you, I know how to kill, I’m an ex-​special forces person.”

“’Just because the trial’s over doesn’t mean that threat isn’t still there,’ said CitizenLink Judicial Issues Analyst Bruce Hausknecht. ‘Judge Walker himself promised the parties to the lawsuit that only he, Walker, would ever look at the video, and only during his deliberations. That’s obviously being violated just by the request’.”

If the anti-gay bigots keep claiming the “radical homosexuals” are “violent,” they’ll lose their case on animus alone.

Which doesn’t mean that we are advocating anyone to make threatening or violent comments anywhere. As you can see, those will be used against us, even when there’s no attempt to determine authorship.

Take a moment and sign AFER’s “Release the tapes” letter, won’t you?