Marisa Tomei, Others Re-Enact Prop 8 Trial

SAN FRANCISCO (May 16) -- Actress Marisa Tomei and actor Josh Lucas met last month in a West Hollywood park to read a compelling script taken from the pages of reality.

The Academy Award-winning Tomei played the part of a lesbian mother testifying in court. Lucas played the famous attorney questioning her about why marriage was so important to her.

"I don't have access to the words that describe my relationship right now," Tomei replied, reading from her script. "I'm a 45-year-old woman. I have been in love with a woman for 10 years and I don't have a word to tell anybody about that. I don't have a word."

This was no rehearsal for a new film. The two were reading court transcripts taken from the federal trial over Proposition 8, the 2008 California initiative that banned same-sex marriage.

A 20-minute video taken of their re-enactment has been posted online as part of a national "guerrilla theater" campaign by supporters of same-sex marriage to dramatize the issues in the trial.

Called "Testimony: Equality on Trial," the novel campaign launched Thursday encourages people across the country to videotape key scenes from the trial and post them on a website alongside performances by Tomei and other professional actors. The website provides 20 scripts, staging tips and instructions for uploading videos.

Organizers of the effort, including veteran gay activist Cleve Jones, Academy Award-winning producer Bruce Cohen and the Los Angeles-based Courage Campaign, hope that people also will post their own videotaped accounts of discrimination they or their loved ones have faced.

"We are trying to put this trial in the hands of everyone in the country," Courage Campaign Chairman Rick Jacobs said. "Give us your testimony. Tell your story. How did inequality affect you?"

Added Jones, who worked closely with San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk before his 1978 assassination: "We will measure our success by how quickly it gets out of our control."

The activists launched their campaign as the lawyers in the landmark Proposition 8 trial prepare for closing arguments June 16.

The federal court case, brought by a lesbian couple and a gay couple who were denied the chance to wed, seeks to overturn the 2008 ballot initiative, which banned same-sex marriages in California after 18,000 gay and lesbian couples had married.

Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who is hearing the case without a jury, took testimony in January but delayed the closing arguments while legal challenges over evidence were resolved. Legal experts expect that the case will eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

Known as Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case was filed against California's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But both the governor and Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown, the former governor who is running for the post again, refused to defend the initiative. Lawyers for Protect Marriage, the sponsors of Proposition 8, stepped in to defend it.

Before the trial, Judge Walker ruled that a videotape of each day's testimony would be posted online for all to see. But defense lawyers protested that their witnesses would be intimidated by having their views disseminated so widely and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to block posting of the video. The high court agreed and prohibited its viewing outside the San Francisco federal courthouse.

Since then, opponents of Proposition 8 have looked for ways to draw attention to the trial testimony, which they believe makes a powerful case for allowing same-sex marriage.

In February, two Los Angeles filmmakers, John Ireland and John Ainsworth, recruited 42 actors to play participants in the trial and re-enacted more than 55 hours of testimony. They posted it on YouTube but viewership has been low.

Cohen, who produced "American Beauty" and "Milk," among other films, said the latest effort offers viewers brief segments that contain emotional highlights of the trial.

"The idea of this was to put it up in shorter pieces that might be easier to watch," he said. "People who wouldn't dream of watching two weeks of testimony might watch Marisa Tomei for 10 minutes."

Cohen said he read through the trial transcript and selected 20 scenes, ranging from a few minutes to 20 minutes long, to serve as scripts. None of the wording has been changed or condensed, he said.

Several of the professional actors praised the scripts as beautifully written, he said. "That's not a script," he recounted telling them. "You just read word for word what came out of their mouths on the witness stand."

Cohen, who sits on the board of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which is funding the lawsuit challenging Proposition 8, attended the first day of the trial and heard the plaintiffs' explain in moving terms why they brought the suit. He was greatly disappointed, he said, when the Supreme Court prohibited posting of the trial video.

"This is just one small way of trying to make up for the heartbreak on the first day," he said. "One can only imagine how many hearts and minds might have been changed."

Other actors who have taped scenes for the project include Patricia Clarkson, Alan Cumming, Ellen Greene, Cheyenne Jackson and Michael Urie.

Tomei, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in "My Cousin Vinny," plays the part of lead plaintiff Kristin Perry as she describes her life and her love for her partner and co-plaintiff, Sandra Stier. Lucas, who starred in "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Glory Road," plays her lawyer, former Solicitor General Theodore Olson.

Jacobs, founder of the progressive Courage Campaign, attended the video shoot at Plummer Park in West Hollywood and praised the actors for their commitment to ending discrimination against gays and lesbians.

"For an Academy Award-winning Hollywood star to take a day and do this and read the part that says, 'I am a lesbian and in love with a woman,' is very brave. It shows great self-confidence and also great passion."

In an e-mail sent out by the Courage Campaign, Tomei explained her involvement in the project and encouraged members of the public to make their own videos.

"Supporters of Prop 8 tried to stop Americans from watching one of the most important trials in a generation," she wrote. "They didn't want the public to see the pain caused by decades of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. But you have the power to change it. You can bring this trial to life, just like I did a few weeks ago in a park with my friend and fellow actor Josh Lucas."

Among those supporting the video campaign are veteran civil rights activists Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, and the Rev. Eric Lee, Los Angeles president of the Southern California Leadership Conference.

At a press conference to launch the campaign, Lee called on church leaders who oppose same-sex marriage to recognize that discrimination on the basis of sexuality is "fundamentally ungodly."

"We have lost sight of our own humanity if we are denying people equality," he said. "My message to the religious community is that God is not a god of judgment. God does not sanction discrimination."

Afterward, the group walked two blocks to Union Square where Lee introduced Ireland and Courage Campaign coordinator Daniel Segura reading the script of witness Ryan Kendall, a Denver police employee who testified about suffering his parents' condemnation when they discovered he was gay.

As tourists walked by and cable car bells clanged, they re-enacted the scene in which Kendall describes being forced by his religious parents to see a Christian therapist for "reversal therapy," which was unsuccessful.

"I knew I was gay just like I knew I'm short and I'm half Hispanic," said Segura, playing the part of Kendall. "And I just never thought that those facts would change."