Gay advocates fear Supreme Court ruling was 'dark omen'

That’s a fascinating and significant First Amendment issue that injects the Supreme Court—where some of the justices write their opinions by hand—into the debate over technology and privacy. The case essentially asks the Court to confront whether too much information, so readily and publicly available online, can actually cause people to be less willing to participate in the political process and, as a result, ultimately suppress free speech. 
Opponents of the domestic partnership laws argue that advances in technology in the Information Age—when information is readily accessible on the Internet to any and all—can end up stifling speech by opening people up to harassment and making them afraid to speak their minds. 

In agreeing to decide the case, the Supreme Court—for the second time this week—has signaled it’s taking those arguments by anti-gay rights groups seriously. 

The high court rebuked U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker for seeking to give the public a chance to view the proceedings on the Internet. In its opinion, the majority saw the dispute through the same lens as the opponents of gay marriage and decided that they -- not homosexuals -- faced a hostile public climate of harassment and intimidation.
The lawyers challenging the California measure hope to build a convincing case that gays and lesbians, like other minorities, suffer from prejudice and bigotry that requires a remedy from the courts.

But if the lawyers' ultimate audience was the Supreme Court, the justices seemed to be getting a different message. In their opinion, they worried that opponents of gay marriage and their paid witnesses would face "harassment as a result of public disclosure of their support" for the ban. They concluded that the Prop. 8 defenders "have shown that irreparable harm will likely result" if video coverage of the proceedings were made public.

The U.S. district court trial is just the first round in the legal fight over California's ban on gay marriage. After Walker rules on Proposition 8, the losing side will appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. From there, the case is sure to go to the Supreme Court.

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"The ideological split was stunning," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a liberal law professor and dean of the UC Irvine Law School. "It made me think of Bush vs. Gore" -- when, after the 2000 presidential election, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 emergency order to halt the recount of Florida's paper ballots and three days later ended the recount.

Last week's intervention in the San Francisco case "suggests the majority has a very strong sympathy for Prop. 8's supporters," USC law professor David Cruz added.