Cool Site of the Week: It's a tie! Firedog Lake and Prop 8 Trial Tracker

This week we have a tie for cool site of the week. I wanted to recognize the efforts of blogs that worked overtime to keep us all informed during the two and a half weeks of Prop 8 trial. Both Firedog Lake and Courage Campaign's Prop 8 Trial Tracker took on the task of live blogging from the courtroom when the U.S. Supreme court ruled that the proceedings could not be televised.

So many us in the LGBT blogosphere owe a debt of gratitude to both of these blogs for their detailed reporting of the constitutional challenge to the hateful voter initiative that allowed mob rule to become the law of the land in California, the most liberal state in the nation. By following these blogs, we were able to read the words of the two courageous couples who launched this fight for the rest of us. They told their moving stories so passionately and eloquently on the stand and deserved to be heard by the world.

We got to read the words of David Boies who made minced meat out of the defense's "expert witnesses" by simply using their own words against them. I can't wait to see the Prop 8 Re-enactment, that is using live blogging transcripts from both of these sites. (The re-enactment is still currently in production and nothing new was posted as of last night when I checked YouTube.)

With the prop 8 trial now on a break for the next few weeks, it may seem there is nothing going on, but I urge you to check out these Firedog Lake and Courage Campaign for some of the best reporting and commentary on the web about our issues.

Prop 8 Trial, Day 7: "Explosive" Documents Reveal LDS Involvement in Prop 8

We've known almost since the beginning that the LDS (Mormon) Church was heavily involved in financing and orchestrating the effort to pass Prop 8, although they have tried play it down have and outright lied about their behind the scenes activities.

Rick Jacobs continues his live blogging for the Courage Campaign from the trial in San Francisco. In Wednesday afternoon's session, documents in the form of letters and e-mails between the Prop 8 campaign and the LDS, Catholic and certain evangelical churches were introduced as evidence outlining the official talking points regarding the churches' pro-H8 activities.

From prop8trialtracker.com: For example, one letter indicated that the LDS church had identified a volunteer for the campaign in every single zip code. This was a church document that was in the hands of a Prop 8 campaign official, and thus was discoverable. Andy Pugno, the general council for ProtectMarriage.com tried his darnedest to get Judge Walker to exclude it, but failed. 

From Rick’s liveblog:
    Pugno: Objects because document will be revealing.

    Judge: Not to make light of this, but the reason people want to produce documents is that they are revealing.

    Boutrous: It’s from an outsider to the core group. We are attempting to show the level of coordination with groups that Protect Marriage says were not even affiliated with the campaign.

(Rick's comment) This is perhaps the most explosive bit of all, from a document between the LDS Church and the campaign:

    "With respect to Prop. 8 campaign, key talking points will come from campaign, but cautious, strategic, not to take the lead so as to provide plausible deniability or respectable distance so as not to show that church is directly involved."

(Rick's comments) Get that? The LDS Church intentionally worked to hide behind the scenes to disguise their involvement in the public realm. The LDS Church is well aware that the general public does not have the most favorable opinion of them. Attention on their involvement could have hurt their cause, namely passing Prop 8.