Gay Activists Lose Their Opportunity to Deny First Amendment Rights to Their Opponents

We all know that in today's politically correct America certain points of view are inviolable while others cannot be allowed. Being pro-gay marriage is inviolable, being against it cannot be allowed.

However, the Ninth Circuit disagreed (h/t Don Surber):

The sponsors of California’s gay marriage ban do not have to turn over internal campaign documents as part of a lawsuit to overturn Proposition 8, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

Reversing the judge presiding over the case, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that forcing backers of the voter-approved ban to reveal their private conversations and internal strategy would discourage like-minded people from working together to advance their political views — a violation of their First Amendment rights.

“The freedom to associate with others for the common advancement of political beliefs and ideas lies at the heart of the First Amendment,” Judge Raymond C. Fisher wrote for the panel.

Attorneys for the two same-sex couples who are trying to get Proposition 8 overturned as a violation of their civil rights have been seeking the information in preparation for the trial, which is scheduled to begin Jan. 11. They are trying to prove that bias against gays and lesbians alone motivated the ballot initiative’s supporters to put it before voters.

The 9th Circuit decision means that to prove their point, the couples’ attorneys will need to rely almost exclusively on published materials from last year’s campaign and interviews with the main players behind the ban.

The anti-Prop 8 forces did everything in their power to punish anyone who supported the gay marriage ban. They released the names of donors to Prop 8 and actively encourage economic and other retribution against businesses whose owners or employees helped support the Prop 8 effort. They also went after organizations like the Mormon Church, which provided some funding for the campaign.

Theirs was an effort to intimidate and harass people with opposing views, and certainly did not meet the standards of tolerance and acceptance they demand of everyone else. They were thugs. You can click on the "Proposition 8" label below for other examples.

And this effort to require political opponents to expose any and all documents or discussions regarding Prop 8 is an absolute violation of their opponents rights on several levels. Had this been allowed to stand every campaign would be subject to such requests from political rivals.

The gay marriage proponents have tried to paint all opposition as the equivalent of a hate crime, and thus effectively criminalize opposition to their political and social views. That's simply un-American and the court was right to reject it.