Has anyone noticed that now that lesbians and gay men have left the closet to assert their equal rights as citizens, their adversaries seem to be running for a closet of their own?

My observation is, of course, prompted by the success that opponents of same-sex marriage had this week in persuading the Supreme Court to bar cameras from the San Francisco courtroom where Proposition 8 is now on trial. That is the amendment that California’s voters added to the state’s Constitution to provide that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

Judge Vaughn R. Walker of United States District Court for the Northern District of California, presiding over the challenge to Proposition 8 in the non-jury trial that began on Monday, announced last month that the court would provide a live video feed to enable remote viewing elsewhere in the courthouse as well as in federal courthouses in four other cities. He also raised the additional prospect of later posting on YouTube and the Internet. The Proposition 8 defenders, claiming that their witnesses would face harassment if their testimony was broadcast beyond the courtroom, asked the Supreme Court to block the plan. By the familiar vote of 5 to 4, the court quickly complied.

Read the rest of Linda Greenhouse’s New York Times article here.