NO BACK SEATS

Read the NYTimes opinion piece about Prop 8 by Edwin Meese and take note of this line, which I will quote exactly as it appears:

“The entire premise of this litigation is disquieting — that traditional marriage is nothing but “the residue of centuries of figurative and literal gay bashing,” as David Boies, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, has written.”

No doubt most people will read Meese’s op ed post without question, and without taking the time to investigate what David Boies actually wrote.  Now, I know we all know that the right uses propaganda like people use toilet paper, but how often do we actually take the time to really put things back into their proper order and context? I would imagine that if we did this regularly, we’d be sick to our stomachs when we realize how pervasive it is and how much it distorts the truth.

This one made me sick to my stomach because I knew, before I even looked up what Boies actually wrote, that the way in which Meese used the quote by Boies totally changed the context and the meaning.

Here is the actual passage from Boies:

“The ban on same-sex marriages written into the California Constitution by a 52% vote in favor of Proposition 8 is the residue of centuries of figurative and literal gay-bashing.”

Huh?  Lets see the two quotes again, one right after the other (I am now pretending to be Rachel Maddow!):

“The entire premise of this litigation is disquieting — that traditional marriage is nothing but “the residue of centuries of figurative and literal gay bashing,” as David Boies, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, has written.”

“The ban on same-sex marriages written into the California Constitution by a 52% vote in favor of Proposition 8 is the residue of centuries of figurative and literal gay-bashing.”

Seems to me that Meese is suggesting that Boies believes (or at least that Boies wrote) that the purpose of society’s preference for man-woman marriage only is to bash and discriminate against gays. Now, mind you - this is MY take.

Now, when I read Boies words in context, it seems to me that he is saying that centuries of homophobia and violence against LGBT people created the conditions within which prop 8 passed. What makes it even more infuriating is that there is no place for comments; preventing someone from exposing the truth - the ultimate message management.

I’m not sure if this would have angered me as much if I had not been following the courtroom tweets by both sides for the last two days. Over and over again, I noticed the cherry-picking of comments and the absence of context from the Yes on 8 tweeters.  What really sent me over the edge was that just after SCOTUS announced they would not allow the trial to be broadcast on YouTube or anyplace else for that matter, all three Yes on 8 tweeters started what I think was a huge twitter propaganda scam.  The Yes on 8 tweeters claimed that twitter was blocking their tweets from being seen in the twitter search engine and so the only way people who were not already following them and were looking via the search engine could see their tweets was if those who were following them retweeted. This of course, would get them lots of retweets, and allow them to message manage. This seemed especially relevant since they did not have that many tweets - perhaps because the witnesses so far have been called by our side, and the testimonies, including the cross examinations, left the Yes folks little to tweet about.

So, just after making their impassioned plea to their followers to retweet their tweets, given they were apparently the victims of the radical leftist activist employees of twitter who were blocking them, they posted one tweet regarding a comment made by a witness. Here are the two tweets; the first about retweeting, and then the next tweet:

ADF MEDIA ”We can still send updates however Twitter has blocked our updates from showing up in search. They only show up if someone retweet’s them.”

ADF MEDIA ”Witness says 74% exclusively male couples have sex outside their relationship,call relationships “open” “nonmonogamous”#prop8 PLS RT”

AND!! There is another twitter account, Alliance Defense, and they posted the exact same tweet.

Here is the link to the Meese piece (can’t help that) and the original Boies piece.

So, now what do we do? Well, since SCOTUS won’t allow the public to bear witness to what is really going on, we have to follow the reports coming from the courtroom by the bloggers and tweeters. Look or the original context of a quote and go to the source as often as possible.  As for the tweets, I have found out a lot by doing a side by side comparison of tweets from the courtroom that were posted at the same time and about the same topic to see what both sides said.

The reality is that we are on our own. SCOTUS denied us the ability to see and hear what is really happening and so it is up to us to get to work, get the truth, and get it out there. That is my goal here now and I will continue to do my best as the trial continues.

I recommend Courage Campaign’s Prop 8 Trial Tracker; “a website that will liveblog the entire proceedings and hold right-wing organizations accountable for what they say every day of the Prop 8 trial, monitoring misleading right-wing claims and reporting the truth.”

It is also important that once you get the facts, to spread them. While this may appear self-serving, I’ll risk my reputation and implore you to post this and the Trial Tracker links to your facebooks, tweet it, and email it to your families and friends.

In other words “PLS RT!”