Putting Baseless Bigotry On Triai

Part of the strategy of the attorneys leading the case against California's Proposition 8 is to show the hate and mindless bigotry that helped fuel the campaign that got it passed in November.  This AP story via the Miami Herald shows a clear example of that from court testimony:

Hak-Shing William Tam of San Francisco spent five hours testifying Thursday as a hostile plaintiffs' witness to prove that bias toward gays fueled the 2008 campaign to pass the voter-approved measure, known as Proposition 8.



Tam, who was one of five individuals who signed on as official proponents of the ban and whose names appeared alongside ballot arguments for Proposition 8, acknowledged that he subscribes to beliefs about an alleged link between homosexuality and pedophilia posted on the Internet by a Chinese-American Christian group for which he serves as secretary.


"Do you believe that homosexuals are 12 times more likely to molest children?" attorney David Boies asked.


"Yeah, based on the different literature that I have read," Tam replied.

Earlier in the trial, a Cambridge University professor testified that there is no evidence to suggest that gays are more likely to molest children than heterosexuals. Boies pressed Tam to cite books, articles or authors he had read to substantiate the views, but Tam said he could not remember specifics.
 
Under questioning by Boies, Tam also said he agreed with a statement on the Web site for the Chinese-American Christian group that said if same-sex marriage was treated as a civil right, "so would pedophilia, polygamy and incest."



"And that is what you were telling people in encouraging them to vote for Proposition 8?" Boies asked.


"Yes," Tam answered.


Tam said he drew that conclusion after reading an Internet article that claimed incest and polygamy were legal in the Netherlands, a country where same-same marriages became legal in 2001.


Boies: You are saying here that after same-sex marriage was legalized, the Netherlands legalized incest and polygamy?"


Tam: "yeah, look at the date, Polygamy happened afterward.


"Who told you that? Where did you get that idea," Boies asked incredulously.


"It's the Internet," he said. "Another person in the organization found it and he showed me it...I looked at the document and I thought it was true."
 
Even while the leaders of the campaign are already working to distance themself from this gentleman of higher thinking, testimony like this helps expose just how baseless some of the angi-gay mindset actually is.
 
Click here to read the rest of the story.