Why, yes, he can. On Saturday night, a cast that was repeatedly called "star-studded" performed a dramatic reading of the play "8," which is more or less an excerpting of the transcripts of the federal trial on Proposition 8. Star-drenched would be more accurate.

My mother's theory was that the quality of any dramatic production tends to be inversely proportional to the number of big names in it, and more often than not, I think that holds. Fortunately, from where I sat, "8" was, for the most part, the exception. Not because the acting was necessarily special but because so many of the lines were. What makes that all the more exceptional is that most of the lines were taken straight from the transcript of the trial.

I certainly had read about the trial avidly while it was going on, but there is indeed something different about seeing it played out, even if that's an enactment. I sat there wondering, did that proponent of Proposition 8 really say something so easily picked apart? Or was the play, more likely, playing for cheap shots? After the play, I spent hours checking several out of the play's exchanges on the Internet. Yes, they were real. Perhaps they stood out more because the play only touched highlights -- although if there were any highlights that made Proposition 8's presentation look good, they were omitted.

Thankfully, the actors played it simply for the most part, letting the essential material shine through, and that includes Clooney, playing the celebrated litigator David Boies, who managed to turn the defense's single witness into more of a witness for the plaintiffs.

The least effective scenes didn't come from the trial transcripts. Those were little side dramas between the lesbian plaintiff mothers (played by Christine Lahti and Jamie Lee Curtis) and their two sons.  The scenes rang a little sappy and false to me.

But you can decide for yourself. The entire play is on YouTube for a few more days. (For some strange reason, it starts at 29:51).

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Photo: George Clooney, left, Martin Sheen and Brad Pitt are shown in a scene from the play "8," at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre. Credit: Jason Merrit / Getty Images for the American Foundation for Equal Rights

To read about the Blunt amendment, which was narrowly defeated Thursday via a U.S. Senate vote to table it, you'd think this was solely about whether religiously affiliated organizations -- such as hospitals or universities with links to churches -- have to provide health-insurance coverage for birth control.

Certainly, what kicked off the legislative move by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) was the Obama administration's rule that they would indeed have to provide that coverage; that was later softened to an agreement under which the coverage would be available, but the insurance companies would pick up the cost, which they have said they're willing to do.

But the Blunt amendment would have gone much further. Any employer would be allowed to refrain from any mandated coverage under healthcare reform if it offended the owners' religious or moral beliefs. That includes screening for sexually transmitted diseases and a load of other generally accepted and important care.

Certainly, if a university that has ties to Catholicism can refuse to offer birth-control coverage, it's hard to imagine why the owner of an auto-parts store who might have equally strong religious beliefs shouldn't get the same break. Which gets to the essential question at the heart of this thinking: What do our bosses get to decide about our lives? Supporters of Blunt might say that people are entitled to buy whatever they want as long as the employer isn't paying for it, but that didn't make much of a difference when the insurance companies were willing to pick up the tab.

The argument that employers shouldn't have to spend their money in support of activities to which they have moral objections has some serious implications, if you take it down the road for a spin. Most employers offer some paid vacation to full-time employees. What if the employee spends that time doing something the employer finds morally objectionable -- say, working to defeat Proposition 8, or working to defend it? Why should the employer have to subsidize that activity?

It's an extreme example, of course. But when you consider the narrowness of the vote taken in the Senate, it's worth wondering the extent to which the Blunt philosophy would hand moral judgments about private decisions to employers.

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Photo: Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) speaks on the Senate floor before a vote on his amendment dealing with contraceptives on Thursday. Credit: CSPAN.org

It's happening again. Polls aggregated by RealClearPolitics.com show the race for the GOP presidential nomination tightening in the runup to Tuesday night's voting. It's not clear from the data, though, whether the gains by Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are eating into Mitt Romney's lead or just pulling votes away from Newt Gingrich, who's trajectory resembles that of a sine wave.

Nevertheless, as long as Romney struggles to captivate most GOP primary voters, his rivals still have a chance -- provided that one of them can consolidate the anti-Mitt vote. If Santorum starts pulling a huge number of votes away from Gingrich, that's almost as bad for Romney as if Santorum were taking votes directly from him.

Although three states are holding votes Tuesday night, only two of the contests will affect the candidates' delegate counts. Missouri's primary is a vanity exercise; the state GOP will award all of its delegates later through county caucuses and other party events. By contrast, Republican caucus-goers in Colorado and Minnesota will dish out a total of 76 delegates Tuesday. That represents a 50% increase in the delegates claimed thus far but still a small fraction of the 1,144 needed to win the nomination.

Not that Missouri won't matter. If Santorum should prevail there and in Minnesota, as Politico says he may, it will give his fundraising a shot in the arm. It will also bolster his claim to being the conservative alternative to Romney whom Republicans should rally behind.

(As an aside, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling against California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage gives Santorum potent new material for his diatribes against gays and lesbians. Although such comments might play well in some GOP circles, they won't necessarily raise Santorum's standing in the party. His campaign has gained traction as he's convinced voters he's not just a one-note social conservative. The more time he spends talking about the court's ruling, the more he may remind voters of the old, caricatured image of himself. Then again, the ruling might make social issues more important in the GOP campaign, which would be good news for Santorum but bad for Romney.)

Gingrich has said several times that the battle for the nomination will continue all the way to the Republican convention in August. The chances of it doing so, however, seem to depend on whether the field narrows further. The three contests Tuesday aren't likely to cause Gingrich or Paul to fold their tents if Santorum notches a couple of wins, but they would certainly increase the pressure.

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Credit: Ben Garvin / Getty Images

It would do Californians good to be able to view the videotape of the federal Proposition 8 trial and decide for themselves. There's such instructive material as the supporters of Proposition 8 being unable to articulate any ways in which same-sex marriage would harm the marriages of opposite-gender couples. And the admission, also by an opponent of gay marriage, that the institution would strengthen the families of such couples.

But there are issues beyond useful instruction. It's hard to argue with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision this week not to release the video because the trial judge, retired U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker, repeatedly assured the participants that the proceedings would never be broadcast and that the tape was just for the use of the court. Shortly after he retired, Walker showed a clip from the trial at a speech he was giving, which also seemed out of line. The clip belonged to the court for court use.

Sometimes, there are compelling reasons for making a video or document public, so much so that it overrides a judicial promise. But edification of the public a couple of years later isn't one of them.

Of course, where the real problem began was with the U.S. Supreme Court deciding not to allow the broadcasts before the trial ever started, yielding to the silly claims by Proposition 8 proponents that the witnesses would somehow be too intimidated. The two witnesses in favor of the marriage ban were both prominent figures who had appeared on television before.

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Photo: Judge Vaughn R. Walker is seen on November 19, 2010. Credit: Elaine Thompson / AP Photo

When actress Cynthia Nixon described herself as "gay by choice" in a New York Times magazine interview, she not only set off a storm of reexaminations of the evidence on whether homosexuality is a matter of nature or nurture, but threw a verbal monkey wrench into the legal question of gay rights.

As Times science writer Karen Kaplan summarized, "The scientific consensus seems to be that there is indeed a biological basis for homosexuality -- though it's not necessarily 100% determined by either genes or by environmental factors." Science is painting a complex portrait in which biology -- not always genetics but also prenatal exposure to hormones -- is certainly an important factor, though perhaps not the only one.

Nixon, though, is framing gay rights in a new way. It's strangely reminiscent of the "gay cures" some religious groups have promoted. They say it doesn't matter whether homosexuality is inborn. It's still wrong, in their eyes, and so people have to "learn" to change their behavior, even if they can never change their sexual preference. A desire to philander might be "inborn" or "natural," they argue, but it still has to be overcome. Nixon, of course, is on the opposite side of that same logical coin. Why, she asks, should homosexuality be any less valid if and when it is chosen?

Why, indeed? So much of the debate about discrimination against homosexuals gets bogged down in extraordinarily judgmental issues. They shouldn't marry, opponents have told the editorial board, because studies show that children are better off with a mother and father. Actually, some excellent studies don't bear that out at all -- but that's not the point. Of the many heterosexuals who make bad parents, why isn't society judging their fitness to wed? When adults engage in sexual behavior of whatever type, why does society set up discriminatory laws against them only when that "type" involves homosexuality?

But in the courts, as the lawsuit against Proposition 8 wends its way through the appellate process, this issue could have very high stakes. Under the 14th Amendment, the courts have historically said that discriminatory laws must pass a very high legal bar to remain law, if they affect a "discrete" and "insular" community that has traditionally been singled out for discrimination. Traditionally, this has included ethnic and racial minorities, and women. In his ruling on the Proposition 8 case, then-U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker wrote that this surely applied to the gay and lesbian communities as well.

Historically, though, one of the criteria for such groups is that they must be a minority because of an unchangeable characteristic. If, as Nixon says, sexual preference can be a choice, then couldn't gays and lesbians simply "choose" otherwise?

Groups don't have to meet all of the criteria laid out, and other factors can be considered. But gay rights activists worry that if sexual preference is seen as mutable, they might lose points in their ongoing legal quest for legal rights.

Nixon, of course, speaks only for herself, and it's doubtful her comments would matter much, if at all, in the case. But in any case, I agree with her; it shouldn't matter. The complicated, perhaps never-knowable question of precisely how people come to be different from each other is a small one compared with the question of why there seems to be so much determination to deprive some of those people of basic rights that in no way harm other people.

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Photo: Actress Cynthia Nixon is seen attending the "Lysistrata Jones" Broadway opening night at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Dec. 14, 2011 in New York City. Credit: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

While California waits for an appellate court ruling on whether Proposition 8 is unconstitutionally discriminatory, legislators in Washington state say they have the votes  to legalize same-sex marriage there, which would make it the seventh state to do so. The governor already has vowed to sign the bill.

Which has to have supporters of same-sex marriage in this state wondering: was it just a matter of bad timing in California? The state Supreme Court struck down a voter-passed ban on such marriages in 2008. That was followed a few months later by the victory of Proposition 8, which embedded the ban into the state Constitution. The current lawsuit claims that the marriage ban violates the U.S. Constitution's non-discrimination provisions.

Times have changed in a few very active years on the gay rights front. In Washington state, the number of people who say they support same-sex marriage has increased. A University of Washington poll found that if the legislation passes, and if a subsequent referendum were held, 55% of state residents would vote to uphold the law and allow the marriages.

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The more the movement spreads in the nation, the more opinion will shift toward recognition that it is discriminatory to withhold the joys and privileges of married life -- though sometimes that life can seem a little short on the privileges -- from gay and lesbian couples. So let's anticipate with glee the possibility that these couples will soon be able to wed a bit farther up the West Coast, at the same time that we wonder how the vote would go if Proposition 8 were facing the test in 2012 instead of 2008.

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Photo credit: Damian Dovarganes / AP Photo

Funny that Fred Karger, gay rights advocate, founded the group Californians Against Hate, since his most recent campaign seems to be about spreading bigotry. For those who haven't heard of Karger -- and that's a lot of people -- he's a Republican candidate for president, listed on the ballot of the New Hampshire primary, who took on a more active political identity after California voters passed Proposition 8 in 2008. Karger is an openly gay candidate who was angered and dismayed by the role that the Mormon Church and its followers took in getting the ban on same-sex marriage passed. 

Negative campaigns and ugly smears might be the stuff of politics these days, but within this category, Karger gets a special space all his own after launching an attack website against Mormonism that purportedly reveals the 10 "craziest beliefs" of Mormons, lest voters consider voting for Mormon candidate Mitt Romney. The site doesn't actually have such a list; it's more a place where anyone can anonymously post any sort of canard about Mormonism. Perhaps rational people could also try inserting some truths, if those are actually allowed.

On the site, Karger writes:

We simply want to help understand Mormons and their beliefs, and have created this web site and blog to help enlighten you and us on the Mormon faith and it many ceremonies and rituals.

This web site is by no means meant to harm anyone or any faith.

Sure it isn't. That's why its title is so balanced.

Karger has his reasons for being at odds with Mormons and their religion; he also has reasons to seek out publicity at any cost, even the cost of religious bigotry.

But during the Proposition 8 campaign, he saw and heard plenty of hateful and false garbage spewed by some of the ban's supporters about and against gays and lesbians, their relationships and their children. Obviously, the lesson he drew from that wasn't what people thought when he founded Californians Against Hate, a phrase that apparently means something different to Karger than to most of the rest of us.

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Photo: Fred Karger, photographed in 2006. Credit: Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times

Monday night, a star-laden, one-time showing of a play about the Proposition 8 trial will be presented on Broadway. Yes, that's the New York Broadway, which seems rather odd and sad for a drama about California's initiative.

But that's OK. Because on the same day, U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Ware ruled that the videotapes of the federal trial must be made public. His order will take effect Sept. 30, if a higher court doesn't overrule him.

It only makes sense for the public to get to see the actual testimony and arguments in the case. Proposition 8, the 2008 constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, has riveted attention and caused divisiveness like few other issues. The initiative's proponents, leaders of ProtectMarriage, had argued against allowing the videotapes to be made public; it's unclear to me exactly why they're against public viewing. Their argument that the witnesses in favor of the ban would feel intimidated fell flat after they brought only two witnesses to the stand, both of them well-known figures who have appeared publicly -- and on television -- before.

Or perhaps it's that they would prefer their own supporters not see the trial. ProtectMarriage put on a less-than-stellar defense of the ban, with the witnesses admitting that the country would be more democratic if same-sex marriage were recognized and that such marriages would strengthen the family lives for same-sex couples. They were unable to articulate any way in which same-sex marriage would harm traditional marriages.

At least, should Monday's ruling stand and the video be unsealed, Californians will get a chance to see for themselves. And that's good for everyone.

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Photo: Former chief judge of the U.S. District Court Vaughn R. Walker. Credit: Beck Diefenbach / Reuters

The Times editorial board praised the New York Legislature for becoming the sixth and largest state to legalize same-sex marriage Friday. However, while New York is helping blaze the civil rights trail, California "is stuck in reverse," though the board noted that polls show sentiment toward gay marriage has shifted from slightly opposed to slightly in favor since the 2008 passage of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California.

The New York legislation's success was also due in part to support from lawmakers with gay and lesbian friends and relatives, a well-organized campaign, and from donations from Republican billionaire Paul Singer. Here's an excerpt from Monday's editorial:

New York's historic vote should help speed things along. With its large population -- third in the nation, behind California and Texas -- there will be more same-sex marriages than ever and more opportunity for Americans to observe and grow accustomed to them. Many of those couples will move to other states where they will press to have their rights recognized.

[…]

Today it is New York's turn to bask in the knowledge that it has moved the entire country forward in the ongoing struggle for equal rights for all. California should learn lessons from New York's victory and quickly put itself back on the right side of history.

Readers  mostly stuck to picking apart each other's arguments, with some offshoots of conversation about bisexuality, polygamy and, as always, some erroneous arguments.

Civil union should be good enough

The article says "WE" believe..... and "WE" feel this way..... Who is "WE"? If this issue is going to end up on the ballot again, it will once again get shot down. The gays will still refuse to accept it though, and some liberal judge will once again overthrow the will of the voters. When will California gays realize that most people in this state don't believe in their wanting to get married. Why isn't a civil union good enough? NO! They want to get MARRIED.

Gays these days are calling anyone that disagrees with them on this a hater. I am not a hater and I am not a religious nut. I just don't agree with gay marriage. If you want to see hate, just look at the hate that will be directed at me for stating my opinion here. 

--LAzyPD 2011

Separate the religion from the law

The fact is, marriage is as much a civil institution as a religious one, if not more so these days.  And in matters of the law, religious beliefs or texts should not play any role.

--HiVeloCT

The "right" to marry isn't a right

This is yet another "progressively" manufactured false issue. There is no "right" to marriage of any kind, be it heterosexual or gay. Interesting how anytime a "progressive" thinks something is "unfair," it morphs into a Constitutionally defended "right" somehow. Which is about the only time they ever pay attention to the Constitution. I don't care what your sexual preferences are. Really. I won't poke you in the eye with my "heterosexualness;" please feel free to stop poking me in the eye with your "gayness." I. Don't. Care.

--Shawn P

Marriage only between human male and female

 I'll say this again, "marriage" can ONLY BE between a human male and female.   Human because the act of "commitment" is reserved for only those with critical thinking, capable of improving upon the previous generation.   Male and female because a marriage is a "union" both physical and emotional.   Only a male and female can unionize in a manner that is designed to produce the continuation of the species.   Any other construct is a "relationship".  

 Secondly, I don't think "marriage" is what homosexuals are really after.  I believe that the goal is "formalized legitimacy" and "marriage" is the closest and strongest thing that approximates that end-goal.   The problem is that even if the Supreme Court decides that gay marriage is constitutional, it will never be accepted in the hearts of conservative believers, much the way abortion has never been accepted.   

--P-Funk

Let's hope future generations don't repeat this bigotry

[…] As any other civil rights struggle, the US will have marriage equality eventually, no matter who is against it. Nobody can stop it.

As a guy from another country, I had never understood why it took the US so long to give blacks what they deserved by birth, how so many people were against African American rights (and so in favor of violence and discrimination) and, mostly, how many said nothing to support those rights a few decades ago. Now I can understand because I hear and read the same non sense arguments against gays, the same stupid violence, and the same dehumanization of people -- to make them an easy target -- that have the same hearts and needs as anybody else.

It's worth saving these comments to make future generations understand why it did not happen before.

--Pablo G

"Sanctity of marriage" is already ruined anyway

Straights have thoroughly botched marriage. Gays could do no worse.

--DGates

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Marchers hold signs thanking Gov. Mario Cuomo for keeping his campaign promise and legalizing same-sex marriage during the 2011 NYC LGBT Pride March on the streets of Manhattan on June 26. Credit: Jemal Countess /Getty Images

Should the federal judge who struck down Proposition 8 have his ruling nullified because he's in a relationship with a man? The easy answer is no. This is just a variation on the argument that Judge Vaughn R. Walker should have recused himself from the case because he's gay. It's no more valid than the first argument.

But the conservatives challenging Walker's role in the case are, ironically, drawing on a theory of diversity more often heard from liberals. The argument goes something like this: Having a judge who is African American or a woman or a "wise Latina" changes the way justice is administered. Life experience, in this view, is a valuable credential.

Now apply this theory to a gay judge: If you argue that his or her life experiences play an important role in how they behave on the bench, you're playing into the hands of the conservatives who would disqualify Walker.

There are other arguments for diversifying the bench. One is the role model theory. Appointing or electing members of a minority group encourages members of that group to aspire to a judicial career. Then there is the the most traditional argument for diversity: redressing past discrimination.

But the "diversity does as diversity is" argument is the most beguiling. It's also the most problematic.

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Photo: Vaughn R. Walker. Credit: Elaine Thompson / Associated Press