8:24 a.m.: Judge and lawyers assemble

The Proposition 8 trial is getting ready to start rolling, although cameras will not roll with the proceedings. The U.S. Supreme Court this morning issued an order blocking Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s move to post the trial on a delayed basis on YouTube, at least for the first few days, while the justices consider the issue. Proposition 8 backers have been vigorously trying to block broadcast of the trial, pushing the matter all the way to the nation’s high court. Meanwhile, hundreds of people have been gathered outside the San Francisco federal building, many of them participating in a rally in support of gay marriage. And everyone is now lining up outside Walker’s courtroom, readying for the start of trial, which is set to begin about 9 a.m.

9:06 a.m.: Opening arguments to begin

The Proposition 8 trial is about to get under way. Walker’s courtroom doesn’t have a spare inch. It’s jammed with spectators, lawyers and media. Theodore Olson, the former U.S. solicitor general during the George W. Bush administration, is preparing to give the opening statement for the plaintiffs, who are challenging the constitutionality of California’s ban on same-sex marriage. Olson and Charles Cooper, the lead attorney for the Proposition 8 defense, exchanged an embrace outside the courtroom, not surprising given the two men are members of the conservative legal establishment who now find themselves on the opposite sides of the controversial trial. A little Hollywood flavor is in the courtroom with director Rob Reiner.

9:21 a.m.: Judge takes the bench

Walker has just taken the bench. The first five minutes is spent with all the lawyers introducing themselves.

Walker is beginning the proceedings by discussing his effort to broadcast the trial by posting it on the court’s Web site by using the YouTube platform. He just noted the court has received more than 138,000 responses to the proposed court rule change that allows broadcast, most in favor. The judge informed the court that only 32 people opposed it, prompting chuckles when he said “the returns are in.” The U.S. Supreme Court nevertheless has put the broadcast on hold until Wednesday to consider the issue.

9:45 a.m.: Judge peppers attorney with questions

Just a few minutes into Olson’s opening statement, it’s clear Walker is not going to be a bystander content to just listen during the trial. He’s already peppered Olson with questions, including wondering whether a state needs to remain in the business of issuing marriage licenses and why domestic partnership provisions confer lesser legal rights and meaning than marriage. When Olson said Californians would never get “out of the marriage business,” the judge was persistent. “Why won’t they get out of the marriage business? It would solve this problem,” Walker said. It is likely the judge will raise every possible question during the next two weeks, his style in even routine cases.

Olson revealed the first four witnesses to take the stand in the trial will be the plaintiff couples, including a lesbian couple from Berkeley. He opened his remarks by saying: “This case is about marriage and equality. The plaintiffs are being denied both the right to marry and equality under the law.”

10:18 a.m.: Obama’s parents mentioned

Olson is now on a roll with fewer interruptions from the judge. He pointed out that under laws that existed in various states until the 1960s, when the U.S. Supreme Court finally declared bans on interracial marriage unconstitutional, President Barack Obama’s parents would have been unable to marry, underscoring what he argued is the discriminatory impact of selective marriage laws. He called the argument that domestic partnership laws are sufficient protection for same-sex couples “a cruel fiction” and a “badge of inferiority” for gay couples.

Walker did ask Olson why the courts shouldn’t just stay out of the gay marriage debate for now and allow the political process to continue to resolve the conflict. “That is why we have courts,” Olson replied. “That’s why we have a constitution.”

Olson just completed his opening argument, and now Therese Stewart, San Francisco’s chief deputy city attorney, is making her argument about how denying marriage rights to same-sex couples can impact local governments. Stewart is a veteran of the gay marriage legal battles. She argued the issue in both cases that reached the California Supreme Court.

10:31 a.m.: Defense attorney begins presentation

After Stewart’s brief argument, Charles Cooper, the lead attorney for the Proposition 8 defense, has begun his presentation. But that was only after Walker lobbed a tough question to California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s lawyer. Brown has taken the position that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, refusing to defend the law. The judge asked why Brown did not take that position when Proposition 8 was on the ballot, given its importance. When Brown’s deputy, Tamara Pachter, responded that the AG doesn’t take that step in the state’s initiative process, Walker was incredulous.

Cooper, meanwhile, is hitting the main points in the defense: that the voters have spoken on the issue, and gay couples in California enjoy strong legal protections under domestic partnership laws. Walker’s first question to Cooper was on the example of President Obama’s mixed-race parents and the evolution of marriage in the country, raised earlier by Olson. Cooper argues that the restrictions on interracial marriage were distinct, and weren’t based on efforts to preserve traditional marriage, as is the case in the same-sex marriage case. The judge wants to know what evidence in the trial will show that difference.

11:03 a.m.: Opening statements conclude

The lawyers are done for now in the Proposition 8 trial. Charles Cooper finished his opening statement, defending the need for society to preserve the traditional definition of marriage and limit it to heterosexual couples for its procreative purposes. He told the judge that marriage must be “pro child,” and that would be at risk if same-sex couples were allowed to marry. Cooper insisted that the courts should stay out of the issue and allow the voters to decide whether they want to allow same-sex marriage, but the judge questioned that thesis. “There are certainly lots of issues taken out of the body politic. Why isn’t this one of them?” the judge asked at one point.

The court is now taking a break until 11:10, at which time Jeff Zarrillo, one of the plaintiffs seeking the right to marry, will take the stand.

11:41 a.m.: Emotional testimony from plaintiff

The Proposition 8 trial may eventually be laden with expert testimony from academics and others, but it is starting off on the emotional side with the testimony of Jeff Zarrillo, one of the plaintiffs seeking the right to marry his partner, Paul Katami.

Zarrillo choked up when asked by lawyer David Boies about the difficulty of coming out as a gay man years ago, recalling small details from his youth, including his fear of going out for his high school football team. Asked about his partner of nine years, he said: “He’s the love of my life. I love him probably more than I love myself.”

Zarrillo, a 36-year-old Burbank man, told the judge he wants to be married so he can “experience the same joy and happiness” as his parents and his brother, who is married. As for domestic partnership, Zarrillo testified it is not equal. “That’s not enough,” he told the packed courtroom. “It’s giving me part of the pie, but not the whole thing.”

After less than 15 minutes, he finished up his testimony. The lawyers defending Proposition 8 chose not to cross-examine him, a bit of a surprise.

12:14 p.m.: Partner testifies

Plaintiff Paul Katami, like his partner, Jeff Zarrillo, has spent some emotional time on the stand, describing both the difficulty of coming out as a gay man and the impact on him of not being able to marry. “Unless you have to deal with that, unless you have to go through this constant validation of self, there is no way to describe how it feels,” he said of being denied the right to wed.

At another point, he grew visibly upset when asked about the Proposition 8 campaign and its reliance on the slogan, “Protect our Children.” He called the campaign insulting. “If you put my nieces and nephews on the stand right now, I’d be the cool uncle,” he said, chuckling.

Then, growing serious, he continued by choking up at the thought that gay marriage would harm children. “There is no recovering from that,” he testified.

Lawyer David Boies played some of the campaign videos that focused on harm to children by the Yes on Proposition 8 backers. How did you feel seeing that video? Boies asked.

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say my heart was racing and I was angry watching it,” Katami said after the video ended.

12:30 p.m.: Judge recesses for lunch break Paul Katami has finished up his testimony under questioning from lawyer David Boies, and will be cross-examined after lunch. The judge just recessed until 1:30. Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier, a Berkeley couple and the other plaintiffs in the case, are expected to testify this afternoon. 1:55 p.m.: Defense cross-examines one of the plaintiffs The afternoon session in the Proposition 8 trial is under way with Katami taking the stand under questioning from Brian Raum, lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, one of the conservative groups aligned against gay marriage. Looks like the gloves will now come off. Raum started by playing a video from the Proposition 8 campaign featuring a Massachusetts heterosexual couple decrying how their second-grader was exposed to teachings about homosexuality at school. Raum is asking Katami about whether he believes it is acceptable for sexuality and homosexuality to be taught to first- and second-graders; Katami is taking a measured approach, pointing out that without children, it is hard to fully evaluate what is appropriate to teach young children about such issues at certain ages. “For me, Proposition 8 had nothing to do with children,” Katami replied under cross-examination. “It was a diversion “… a tactic which does not sit at the core of the issue.” 2:29 p.m.: Berkeley woman describes relationship with partner Kristin Perry, a Berkeley woman, has taken the witness stand, describing her relationship with her partner, Sandy Stier, and why she wants the right to marry. Under questioning from her lawyer, Theodore Olson, she was asked why she became a plaintiff in the groundbreaking legal fight. “I want to marry Sandy,” she said simply. Perry drew a few chuckles when Olson tossed a question about whether she could envision changing so that she’d be able to have a relationship with men (plaintiff lawyers have been asking that question throughout the day, a clear attempt to rebut the argument of gay marriage foes that being gay is a choice, not part of their natural makeup). “I’m 45 years old,” she said of changing her sexual preferences. “I don’t think so.” Perry also walked the judge through her long effort to marry Stier, dating back to 2003, when she proposed in the Berkeley hills. She testified how they were one of the couples to marry at San Francisco City Hall in 2004, getting a license that was later invalidated by the courts. When she lost the right to marry through Proposition 8, her reaction was: “I’m not good enough to marry.”

3:01 p.m.: Growing up gay in Bakersfield

Perry just completed her testimony, a bare-bones description of what it’s been like for her to grow up a lesbian in conservative Bakersfield and now find herself fighting for the right to marry. Perhaps her most emotional moment came when she described attending football games with Stier at the high school where two of their four boys go, and going into the stands with the other parents. Perry scrunched up her face and said when she looks around, all she thinks is, “They’re all married “… and I’m not.”

She dismissed the idea that her domestic partnership with Stier is enough. She also recounted going to the Alameda County clerk’s office last May in an attempt to get a marriage license, only to get turned away by a “nervous” supervisor who told the couple Proposition 8 prevented them from marrying. “There’s something so humiliating about everybody knowing you want to make some decision, and you don’t get to,” she testified.

Proposition 8 lawyers did not question Perry. Stier has just taken the stand, going through her background, including one failed heterosexual marriage before her relationship with Perry.

3:12 p.m.: Judge asks: What if state got out of marriage business?

Judge Walker, largely silent since the four plaintiffs started testifying, broke out with a tough question for Stier as she discussed the distinction between domestic partnership and marriage. The judge was clearly intrigued by the fact that Stier has been in both worlds, having been married to a husband for 12 years, and now in a domestic partnership with Perry for more than nine years. After Stier testified that “it’s not the same” without the marriage license, Walker broke in and asked how she’d react if the state got out of the marriage business for everyone, including heterosexual couples. Would she still feel the same about the term “marriage”? the judge asked. Would that put her “on the same plane” with heterosexual couples? he asked.

Stier pondered the question for a moment.

“I believe it would,” she replied, “because there wouldn’t be anything different” in how the state treats her relationship. The trial day is drawing to a close in less than an hour.

3:24 p.m.: Plaintiffs end testimony; first expert witness called

It’s on to the experts in the Proposition 8 trial. Stier just completed her stay on the stand. The plaintiffs have called their first academic, Nancy Cott, a Harvard University historian and expert on American marriage history and issues involving women and families.

4:11 p.m.: Court adjourns for the day

The Prop 8 trial has adjourned for its first day. Cott is still on the stand, testifying about the history and cultural significance of marriage in American society. The testimony is often dry, but appears designed to back up the plaintiffs argument that same-sex couples are being denied a crucial equal right. Cott rejected the notion that domestic partnership protections, no matter how strong, equate with marriage. “There is no comparison in my historical view,” she told the judge. “There is nothing like marriage except marriage.”

Cott returns to the stand Tuesday morning at 8:30 a.m.

Read Howard Mintz’s recap of the first day of the Proposition 8 trial later today online on this Web site and in tomorrow’s Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, and other Bay Area News Group papers. Return to this Web site for live coverage of the Proposition 8 trial tomorrow and each and every day.