In June 2008, the LDS First Presidency asked all California Mormons to give their time and money to Proposition 8, a ballot measure striking down gay marriage. Many members did so with gusto, circulating petitions, raising money, sending e-mails to church lists and putting up lawn signs.

That left other Bay Area Mormons, particularly those with gay friends and relatives, feeling embattled and alienated. Some stepped away temporarily from church; others left for good. Those who remained often felt at odds with fellow believers.

Oakland Stake President Dean Criddle, a respected lawyer and gentle leader, sensed the ripples of collective pain and wanted to reunite his flock, says Matt Marostica, bishop of the Berkeley Ward.

So Criddle and his counselors assembled quotes and speeches from LDS general authorities that stressed love and compassion for those with same-sex attraction. They then asked each of the 10 wards in the stake to hold a joint meeting of adult members during church services on either Aug. 30 or Sept. 6 to hand out the quotes and listen to personal stories from area members.

It is a breakup many LGBT activists say is long overdue, and now openly gay state Senator Mark Leno wants the state to intervene in the split. Leno is pushing a bill that would, in effect, divorce religion from marriage under California's statutes.

Leno's bill, SB 906, is called the Civil Marriage Religious Freedom Act. It would emphatically state that faith leaders in California will not face penalties or be arrested if they refuse to marry same-sex couples. The legislation also clarifies that any church that does not sanction same-sex marriages would not lose its tax-exempt status.

In their analysis, the researchers found no evidence of gender-based parenting abilities, with the "exception of lactation," noting that very little about the gender of the parent has significance for children's psychological adjustment and social success. They found there are far more similarities than differences among children of lesbian and heterosexual parents. On average, two mothers tended to play with their children more, were less likely to use physical discipline, and were less likely to raise children with chauvinistic attitudes. Studies of gay male families are still limited.

Documents and videos presented by the Olson and Boies team also revealed that the Prop. 8 campaign paid for broadcasts that sought to link marriage equality to incest, polygamy, bestiality, and pedophilia to justify the restriction of people's civil rights. This clearly points to the discriminatory motivations and unconstitutionality of the initiative.

Olson and Boies also presented to the court the depositions of the four expert witnesses that the defendant-intervenors dropped from their witness list. The defendant-intervenors cut their witness list from six to two after those experts made several statements damaging to Prop. 8 and in support of the plaintiffs' case during their depositions. Go to: http://www.equalrightsfoundation.org/press-releases/defendant-experts-undercut-prop-8/.

The defendant-intervenors' own experts stated under oath in their depositions that:

• Equal marriage would increase family stability and improve the lives of children

• Sexual orientation is not something that can be readily changed

• Gay men and lesbians have faced a long history of discrimination including violence - discrimination that continues today and that includes Prop. 8

• There is broad scientific and professional consensus in favor of equal marriage

The Courage Campaign's Rick Jacobs today filed a complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission today against Andy Pugno, one of the key figures behind the effort to ban same-sex marriage in California.

The complaint, which is included below as a Scribd embed, alleges that Pugno misused public funds while on the staff of State Senator Pete Knight in the late 1990s to help the campaign to pass the so-called "Knight Initiative" - a California version of the Defense of Marriage Act banning same-sex marriage.

LGBT POV is among the many LGBT and MSM blogs that have been covering the federal challenge to Prop 8 (see here and here, for example). And with the decision by the US Supreme Court not to allow broadcasts of the trial outside the San Francisco federal courthouse, bloggers such as Courage Campaign's Rick Jacobs have been live-blogging the events.

But many of us also begged the American Foundation for Equal Rights - the group sponsoring the plaintiff's legal team lead by Ted Olson and David Boies, to please secure the expensive trial transcripts and post them on their website so everyone can see what's happening.

Under cross-examination, Blankenhorn said he has not scientifically studied the impact of same-sex marriage on the institution of marriage in countries where it is now legal.

And he said that none of the work by scholars that he submitted to court has studied the impact either.

He also said he knew of no study showing that children raised by gay parents are worse off than children raised by their biological mothers and fathers.

The Prop 8 trial witness testimony ended today with defendant's last "expert" witness David Blankenhorn, the founder and president of the Institute for American Values, a conservative group committed to the "renewal of marriage."

On Tuesday plaintiff's attorney David Boies immediately went after his so-called expert status, almost disqualifying Blankenhorn from being a witness at all

Miller admitted that some people voted for Proposition 8 based on stereotypes, but he could not say to what extent.

Then it got unpleasant for Miller. He has a new book that came out in 2009 in which he argues that initiatives that disadvantage minorities "can easily tap into an anti-minority sentiment". He even gave examples including initiatives directed towards restricting the rights of homosexuals. One of Miller's examples of initiatives that tapped into anti-minority sentiment and disadvantaged homosexuals was Proposition 22, the original ban on gay marriage that was overturned by the California Supreme Court.

Miller argued in his book that courts needed to strictly scrutinize initiatives and not be lenient because their role was to protect minorities from such initiatives. He had written in an article that "Once this majority puts its preference into the state constitution, the legislature and state courts can't take it out. Only federal courts are the remedy.".

A year later, Miller "no longer believes" his own book. In fact, he "did not believe all of it" when he wrote it. (Miller has just torpedoed his own career.)

David Boies, a lawyer representing gay couples, began questioning Mr. Blankenhorn in a cross-examination that had the two men raising their voices at each other. They accomplished little as Mr. Boies pressed the witness to give succinct answers, which Mr. Blankenhorn often refused to do. Their bickering prompted the judge to end the trial for the day. He asked lawyers from both sides to finish presenting evidence Wednesday morning.

Lawyers for two same-sex couples suing to overturn the voter-approved ban known as Proposition 8 are trying to prove that deep-seated prejudice motivated the measure.

Plaintiffs' attorney David Boies asked Miller, "You do agree there are some gays and lesbians who are fired from their jobs, refused jobs and paid less because of their sexual orientation?"

"I have no reason to disagree with that. I expect that's the case," Miller replied.

One of the defendants' strategies is to divert attention from the real issues in the case by casting themselves, incredibly, as the victims of alleged persecution. Prop. 8 targeted gay people in order to strip them of a fundamental right. And yet the defendants have fixated on alleged incidents of harassment of Prop. 8 supporters during the campaign. In fact, they have even gone so far as to suggest that Prop. 8 passed in part because voters reacted negatively to alleged "violence" by Prop. 8 opponents. Given the damage inflicted on LGBT people by antigay stereotypes and bigotry, it is shameful that the defendants would engage in such obvious appeals to that very bigotry, but of course, such a strategy is on par with everything they have done throughout and since the campaign. While we are optimistic that the ninth circuit will reject such claims for the bogus antigay baiting they are, the public may in fact adopt this narrative as accurate, which would be dangerous and distressing.

Under cross-examination from plaintiffs' attorney David Boies, Miller admitted that some of the materials he relied on in his testimony were supplied by lawyers for Proposition 8 rather than his own research.

Miller also agreed that the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy discriminates against homosexuals and that no other minority group in the nation is dismissed from the armed services on the basis of its status.

The Proposition 8 sponsors are seeking to use Miller's testimony to counter an opposing view presented by Stanford University political science professor Gary Segura on behalf of the plaintiffs last week.

Segura testified that gays and lesbians lack "a meaningful degree" of political power.

He said that gays and lesbians have been targeted nationwide in ballot initiatives, including Proposition 8, more than any other group and have lost 70 percent of more than 150 ballot measures presented to voters throughout the country since the 1970s.

"Initiatives have been used to roll back gains by gays and lesbians over and over again," Segura said last week.

It appeared the lawyers were introducing the material to demonstrate the campaign for the ban appealed to religious-based, anti-gay bias to scare voters into supporting the measure.

The trial, being held in San Francisco, is the first in a federal court to examine if states violate the U.S. Constitution by preventing same-sex couples from marrying.

Proposition 8 sponsors objected to the video, saying the content of the simulcast was not controlled by campaign managers or leaders.

However, Chief U.S. Judge Vaughn Walker allowed the material to be put into the record because the coalition of religious and conservative groups behind Proposition 8 paid for Garlow's work.

In the six-minutes of video shown for Walker, various people opined on the negative consequences of legalizing gay marriage. One unidentified speaker compared the potential social impact of "this social reengineering of marriage" to the way the 9/11 terrorist attacks made the world "a fundamentally different place."

A significant dispute broke out today in court over whether Yes on 8 campaign manager Frank Shubert can be called to the witness stand by the legal team defending the constitutionality of California's same-sex marriage ban.

Plaintiffs, the legal team challenging Proposition 8, had sought, during deposition, to elicit testimony from Shubert--who was also instrumental in putting together both the Yes on 8 campaign and the campaign to repeal of Maine's marriage equality law. But during that deposition, defense attorneys repeatedly instructed Shubert not to respond.

It may be the friendliest audience Reed Cowan will get in Utah.

Cowan received two sustained standing ovations Sunday for his documentary "8: The Mormon Proposition," which harshly criticizes The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for its campaigning for California's ban on same-sex marriage, from the 600-strong audience attending the film's world premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

On stand today is Dr. Greg Herek, a leading authority on the psychology of sexual orientation. Herek will discuss three opinions:

* Nature of sexual orientation and how it is understood in sociology and psychology
* The immutability of sexual orientation
* Stigma and prejudice against gays and lesbians and how that intersects with Proposition 8

The Bay Area's Chinese Christians are overwhelmingly evangelical, especially in the South Bay, although there is smattering of main-line Protestants and Catholics as well in San Francisco. Evangelical Chinese Christians were one of the region's most vocal and well-organized groups supporting Proposition 8, the ballot measure banning same-sex marriage, which voters approved in 2008.

I felt like [the Tam examination] was the first instance that we really saw him display why he's David Boies. He had done a direct before, but hadn't been up there that much. That goes for the other name principals [also]. Since the first day, the associates and junior partners have so far been carrying the bulk of the work. Boies was very strong. Many times we saw him lull the witness into acknowledging certain facts, then use those facts against him. He was effective at laying traps and capitalizing on them.

Last week, I posted on filmmaker John Ireland's project to produce reenactments of the Prop 8 trial. Today, he and fellow filmmaker John Ainsworth have posted a trailer.

A political scientist testifying on behalf of supporters of same-sex marriage said Wednesday that gays and lesbians have little political power and can't count on most of their friends in high places, including President Obama.

At a federal court trial in San Francisco on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, Stanford University Professor Gary Segura cited ballot measures, state and federal laws, hate crime statistics and opinion polls as evidence that gays and lesbians, like racial minorities, need judicial protection from discrimination.

"Gays and lesbians do not possess a meaningful degree of political power. They are not able to protect their essential interests," said Segura, who heads the university's Chicano studies program and co-directs its Center on American Democracy.

Challengers of California's ban on same-sex marriage tried to show Wednesday that religion has promoted discrimination against gays.

Lawyers trying to overturn Proposition 8 presented testimony of a gay man who said his evangelical parents forced him into Christian therapy to change his sexuality, and the legal team later produced documents that showed close ties between leaders of the Catholic and Mormon churches and the Proposition 8 campaign.

Available immediately are the transcripts from all past days of trial. Yesterdays transcript is still forthcoming.

Please note that while we hope to post these transcripts daily, their availability is subject to change.

Please note these transcripts may be read, linked to and quoted from, but not reposted or sold in any way.

The appointment of Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Richard Walker to the bench was held up for two years during the late 1980s in part because he had angered gay rights activists.

Now, he is presiding over the most important gay civil rights case in a generation.

We now find out why Professor Douglas Allen withdrew as a witness. It appears that he was to tell the court that since marriage equality came to the Netherlands that the total number of marriage decreased. However, he also noted that it was part of a greater trend rather than an effect of marriage equality. Badgett used Allen's testimony to argue that comparison to Massachusetts is more reasonable than comparison to a foreign nation.

After the Supreme Court blocked video broadcast of the federal trial to decide the constitutionality of a gay marriage ban last Wednesday, freelance journalist and filmmaker John Ireland decided he'd produce his own version and post it on YouTube.

"People want to see this drama unfold and there is a tremendous narrative that was propelled by that first day of testimony," Ireland told On Top Magazine on Sunday. "This is the first time that gay and lesbian people have talked about their lives in federal court. It's historic from that point of view."

Ireland said he's basing his storytelling on the accounts of bloggers present at the trial that started last Monday in a San Francisco courtroom.

While Prop. 8's sponsors strive for a benign image of their supporters as parents and family members motivated by their faith and concern for their children, their opponents are trying to paint a more sinister picture of fearmongers appealing to prejudice.

Their prime example has been William Tam, a San Francisco chemical engineer who was one of five official proponents of the ballot measure.

Tam, who heads the Traditional Family Coalition, sent a letter to churchgoing supporters in the Asian American community during the campaign warning that "other states would fall into Satan's hands" if Prop. 8 lost.

San Francisco's government, "under the rule of homosexuals," would legalize sex with children and prostitution, and "more children would become homosexual," Tam wrote.

At a deposition that was videotaped and played in court, Tam said he was concerned that every child would "grow up thinking whether he would marry John or Jane" if same-sex marriage were legalized. His own daughter, he said, told him "her classmates chose to become lesbians and experiment with it" after hearing about same-sex marriage.

It was just the sort of disclosure the plaintiffs were looking for as evidence that the Prop. 8 campaign was designed to appeal to anti-gay stereotypes. They plan to call Tam as a witness this week.

Mayor Sanders will testify Tuesday for the Plaintiffs.

This personal testimony about not being able to deny rights to those you know and love might resonate with SCOTUS Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy in the Lawrence case. Did some SCOTUS clerks of Justice Kennedy approach him when Lawrence was being heard? Did they, previously closeted, come out to him and personally testify to him about the pain they felt that their lovemaking was illegal?

The trial resumes Tuesday with a lineup of witnesses likely to include controversial Proposition 8 proponent William Tam and San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican former police chief who switched positions and came out in favor of same-sex marriage. The plaintiffs say they will rest their case Wednesday.

If Boies and team is able to show what he claims, that their testimony was without basis, the experts have opened themselves to charges of perjury. Removing the possibility that the defense team knew about the baselessness of the depositions, because such a circumstance would be an egregious violation of professional responsibility, this also has huge implications for the case. If the defense experts admitted that there is no basis to say there is harm to straight marriages, that point becomes a big longshot to recover for the defense.

These two experts and the story surrounding their disappearance should be closely watched as we head into the second week.