San Diego Marriage Equality Trial Delayed (tags)
A funny thing happened to the six remaining defendants in the Equality Nine case — members of the San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality (S.A.M.E.) who were arrested while demonstrating for marriage equality at the San Diego County Clerk’s office August 19, 2010 — on their way to a trial that was supposed to begin April 30. Judge Joan Weber, discovered that prosecutors had systematically excluded Queers from the jury pool, and she threw out the entire jury pool and decided that the case would have to start over September 18.
Marriage Equality Activists Face Trial March 28 (tags)
The Equality 9 — nine members of the San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality (S.A.M.E.) who sat in at the San Diego county clerk's office August 19, 2010 to protest the delay in implementing the federal court decision that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, are facing trial in San Diego County Superior Court March 28. They are asking for people to show up at 8 a.m. for a pre-trial march and rally and to contact San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith to urge him to drop the charges.
Two Hard Cases, Two Bad Laws (tags)
The November 14 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the constitutionality of so-called "Obamacare" and the November 17 decision of the California Supreme Court that the proponents of Proposition 8 have legal standing to appeal it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court are both disasters for the progressive community. But they also highlight the conflict between general principles of justice progressives should support and tactical positions in specific cases that may work to our short-term advantage but cause us problems later on.
The Long and Winding Road of Marriage Equality Litigation (tags)
Seeking social change through litigation is not for the faint-hearted ? or the impatient. At the July 28 meeting of the predominantly Queer San Diego Democratic Club, attorney Jason Molnar of the Southern Poverty Law Center talked about the history of marriage equality litigation and brought two flow charts showing the twisted route it's already taken through the courts ? and it's likely to get even more twisted before the U.S. Supreme Court rules one way or the other.
Back to the Ballot - Queer Activists Debate Whether to Seek Repeal of Prop. 8 (tags)
With the court challenge to Proposition 8, California?s voter-approved ban on legal recognition of same-sex marriages, mired in potential legal wrangling that could take years to resolve, Equality California (EQCA) revived their plans to take the issue back to voters and seek an initiative to repeal Prop. 8. But the 70 or so activists at the EQCA town-hall meeting in San Diego June 3 split over whether that?s a good strategy ? or whether EQCA, primarily a lobbying organization, is the right group to run such a campaign.
Where Is LA’s ‘Secret Room’? (tags)
In 2005 the Electronic Frontier Foundation exposed the existence of a secret NSA spy room monitoring Internet activities in an AT&T facility in San Francsico. The EFF also found there was a Secret Room in LA. But where is it?