This morning’s testimony by an expert witness on the economic impact of legalizing same-sex marriage continued the plaintiffs’ trend of putting experts on the stand who are heavily biased in favor of homosexual marriage and whose testimony is largely – if not wholly – irrelevant to the constitutionality of Prop 8.
Dr. Edmund Egan, San Francisco County’s chief economist, gave his opinion about the potential economic benefits of legalizing same-sex marriage for San Francisco. He gave his opinion that the City and County of San Francisco would enjoy significant economic benefits from invalidating Prop 8 due to an increase in gay weddings and the attendant sales and hotel tax revenues, a decrease in reliance upon public mental health services and health care, and increased wealth accumulation by the homosexual community in the region. In short: California should legalize same-sex marriage so that San Francisco can save money and receive a windfall of taxpayer dollars. I wonder what the rest of California thinks about that.
Throughout his testimony, Dr. Egan admitted that his expert report failed to predict any long-term benefits of allowing same-sex marriage and that much of it was based on research conducted elsewhere that he had not independently authenticated. More alarming for the plaintiffs and positive for us was his admission that “the majority of my report isn’t quantifiable.” In other words, this expert had no way to prove his conclusions! When asked by reporters why the plaintiffs called Dr. Egan as a witness, I truly could not answer. It clearly wasn’t because it advanced their cause.
As with their previous witnesses, this made for arguably interesting testimony, but it has nothing to do with the reason we are in court: to weigh the constitutionality of Prop 8. We simply heard more opinions by a witness who admits that he believes that same-sex marriage should be legalized. For whatever reason, the plaintiffs are presenting witnesses whose testimony has, in the words of defense attorney David Boies, little constitutional relevance, but rather makes only a political argument that Judge Walker should invalidate the wishes of the seven million people who voted to continue marriage as between a man and a woman.
On the issue of protecting our witnesses and our right to a fair trial by preventing the televising of the trial over YouTube – on which the United States Supreme Court sided with us yesterday – it has been suggested that we have made much ado about nothing since I am holding on-camera interviews and some of our witnesses took a public stand during the campaign. Let me provide an example that underscores our contention that there is a real concern for our witnesses’ safety: some of our selected witnesses would absolutely refuse to testify if the trial had been televised based on fears of reprisal. This punctuates our position that televising the trial would have prevented us from mounting the most vigorous defense possible. Thankfully, these witnesses have agreed to participate due to the high court’s decision in our favor.
