Racially segregated proms have been held in Montgomery County [,Georgia] — where about two-thirds of the population is white — almost every year since its schools were integrated in 1971. Such proms are, by many accounts, longstanding traditions in towns across the rural South, though in recent years a number of communities have successfully pushed for change. . . . The senior proms held by Montgomery County High School students — referred to by many students as “the black-folks prom” and “the white-folks prom” — are organized outside school through student committees with the help of parents. All students are welcome at the black prom, though generally few if any white students show up. The white prom, students say, remains governed by a largely unspoken set of rules about who may come. Black members of the student council say they have asked school administrators about holding a single school-sponsored prom, but that, along with efforts to collaborate with white prom planners, has failed. According to Timothy Wiggs, the outgoing student council president and one of 21 black students graduating this year, “We just never get anywhere with it.” Principal Luke Smith says the school has no plans to sponsor a prom, noting that when it did so in 1995, attendance was poor.

Students of both races say that interracial friendships are common at Montgomery County High School. Black and white students also date one another, though often out of sight of judgmental parents. “Most of the students do want to have a prom together,” says Terra Fountain, a white 18-year-old who graduated from Montgomery County High School last year and is now living with her black boyfriend. “But it’s the white parents who say no. … They’re like, if you’re going with the black people, I’m not going to pay for it.”

“It’s awkward,” acknowledges JonPaul Edge, a senior who is white. “I have as many black friends as I do white friends. We do everything else together. We hang out. We play sports together. We go to class together. I don’t think anybody at our school is racist.” Trying to explain the continued existence of segregated proms, Edge falls back on the same reasoning offered by a number of white students and their parents. “It’s how it’s always been,” he says. “It’s just a tradition.”

Talbot compares the educational value of Perry to that of the trial in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the successful legal challenge against a public school district’s requirement that “intelligent design” be taught as an alternative to evolution as an explanation of the origin of life:

In many ways [the trial in Perry] reminded me of another culture-war trial that I covered, in 2005, one that presented a similar opportunity for intellectually engaging with the arguments and research that usually remain submerged beneath a politicized controversy. That trial was to decide whether intelligent design could be part of the curriculum in a Pennsylvania school district, and its expert testimony covered everything from the fossil record of obscure dinosaurs to Darwin’s own religious beliefs to the theoretical underpinnings of the separation of church and state.

It really is unfortunate the Supreme Court ruled that Perry could not be broadcast via the internet. I very much would like to have seen a witness explain exactly how it is that gay marriage undermines straight marriage. I’ve genuinely tried to understand the argument from some very intelligent people who think that gay marriage does indeed undermine straight marriage, but, I’ll confess, my mind has been unable to get itself around the argument.

By a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court kept in place Wednesday its order blocking video coverage of the trial of California’s Proposition 8, with a conservative majority ruling that defenders of the ban on same-sex marriage would likely face “irreparable harm” if the proceedings were broadcast to the public.

“It would be difficult — if not impossible — to reverse the harm of those broadcasts,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion. The witnesses, including paid experts, could suffer “harassment,” and they “might be less likely to cooperate in any future proceedings.” The high court also faulted U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker for changing the rules “at the eleventh hour” to “allow the broadcasting of this high-profile trial” that will decide whether gays and lesbians have a right to marry in California.

Though the opinion is unsigned, it clearly speaks for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr. . . .

The majority cited newspaper accounts from the last year to bolster its contention that opponents of same-sex marriage have been “subject to harassment,” including “confrontational phone calls and e-mail messages” and even “death threats.” Under the court’s rules, the justices do not intervene in pending cases unless they are convinced that the appealing side has a strong legal claim as well as evidence of “an irreparable harm” if the court fails to act.

[Justice] Breyer [in the dissenting opinion joined in by Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor] scoffed at the notion that the witnesses in this case would face harm, because they have gone on television in the past to advocate their views. “They are all experts or advocates who have either already appeared on television or Internet broadcasts, already toured the state advocating a ‘yes’ vote on Proposition 8,” he said.

So, as CNN reports, controversy and legal wrangling has erupted over the decision by “the federal judge who is hearing appeals of California’s Proposition 8 this week ruled that the proceedings could be shown — albeit in delayed fashion — on YouTube.”  But opponents of same-sex marriage, outlawed by Proposition 8, appealed the judge’s order and yesterday the Supreme Court postponed the online broadcasts at least until tomorrow (when, it is hoped, the Supreme Court will rule on the issue).

Jon Davidson, legal director of the pro-gay rights Lambda Legal, argued that opponents of same-sex marriage want to keep the trial as much out of the public eye as they can because public debate on same-sex marriage actually increases support for it. In addition, he argued that the risks of true public access to the proceedings is way overblown:

“One of the things we find on the marriage issue, but really on all issues in response to gay rights, is that the more discussion there is — the more conversation, the more people learn — the more likely it is that gay people are going to do well,” Davidson said.

Davidson said posting the trial on YouTube wouldn’t increase the potential for witnesses to be harassed, saying that anyone can read news reports after the fact to find out who spoke and what they said.

Besides, any effort to block new-media coverage of the hearings is already too late, Davidson said. He said people in the courtroom for opening arguments Monday were posting live updates to Twitter throughout.