Prop 8 Lawyer Acting All “Pro-Children”

Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/epsos/">epSos.de</a> (<a href="http://www.creativecommons.org" target="_blank">Creative Commons</a>).

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Everyone seems to be appealing to emotion at the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial in San Francisco today, and that includes Charles Cooper, the attorney who is defending Prop. 8. (Read a profile of the little rascal here. And note: I’ve been following updates on the case from Dan Levine, a legal reporter, who is live-tweeting the action. The American Foundation for Equal Rights is also providing Twitter coverage.)

As Cooper began making his case to Judge Vaughn Walker, he said marriage between a man and a woman “is a pro-child societal institution,” the meaning of which is beyond me, other than that, yes, a man and a woman can produce offspring. (They can do this whether or not they’re married, incidentally, and sometimes they even do it on accident!) And after opposite-sex married folk have children, they can also occasionally be seen leaving them unsupervised in hot cars while shopping at Wal-Mart and pretending they floated away in a helium balloon.

This case isn’t even about children, but apparently Cooper needs to be reminded that if a gay couple did had kids, they would be subject to the same child-protection laws as their not-always pro-child straight counterparts. The institution of marriage itself does not look after children. The laws protecting children do, and Cooper looks ridiculous trying to make the case for marriage as some sort of self-regulating, pro-child wonderland. It all just smacks of hateful harpy Anita Bryant circa 1977, who famously screeched, “Please remember, homosexuals don’t reproduce! They recruit! And they are out after my children and your children.” (A gay rights activist later threw a banana cream pie in her face.)

Anyway, Cooper, back to you: For the children, you say? Give me a break! Leave the kids at home. This is a case about adults. But if you insist upon making it about children, what about all the kids of gays and lesbians out there who wish they could say their parents were married?

 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate