By a 5-4 vote today, the US Supreme Court decided to block broadcast of the Proposition 8 trial being held in the 9th Circuit court in San Franscisco.
The scotusblog.com entry on the decision is here, and the link to the pdf of the Court decision and the dissent is here.
The conservative majority on the Court apparently found the allegations of harassment against Prop 8 supporters more compelling than the need for the LGBT community to bear witness.
Tidbits from scotusblog:
Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked any television broadcast to the general public of the trial in a San Francisco federal court of the challenge to California’s ban on same-sex marriage. The stay will remain in effect until the Court rules on a coming appeal challenging the TV order. The Court, chastizing the trial court for attempting "to change its rules at the eleventh hour," issued an unsigned 17-page opinion. The ruling came out nearly 40 minutes after an earlier temporary order blocking TV had technically expired.
(snip)
The Court’s main opinion opened with a display of pique at the trial judge and the Ninth Circuit Court for moving to allow TV broadcasts of the hotly controversial trial ....
".... it appears the courts below did not follow the appropriate procedures set forth in federal law before changing their rules to allow such broadcasting. Courts enforce the requirements of procedural regularity on others, and must follow those requirements ourselves."
(snip)
Although the main opinion was unsigned ... (snip) ... Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the only member of the Court to dissent from Monday’s order, wrote the dissenting opinion Wednesday, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and John Paul Stevens. Thus, the ruling split the Court along the customary conservative-liberal divide.
Manufactured--even operatic--pique, apparently. Justice Breyer's dissenting opinion refutes, soundly, these allegations of procedural irregularity and is well worth reading.