The Fear Factor What happens to democracy when everyone's too scared to show up?

[midnight]

By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Saturday, June 19, 2010, at 8:00 AM ET

Fear kept some opponents of gay rights from testifying in the Prop 8 case
One of the hottest new trends in litigation is fear. Witnesses in an important gay-rights case claimed they were too afraid to testify because they would be subject to reprisals for their unpopular views. Plaintiffs in another case claimed they're afraid for their very lives if their names are disclosed publicly. Contributors to political campaigns want to shield their names out of fear of death threats.


It's one thing to hear this kind of talk from eyewitnesses in gang shootings. But claims that you are too scared to publicly state your beliefs have become common among opponents of gay rights, especially. Which raises the question: What happens to our civic life when we're all too scared to participate?
Concern about witness intimidation was the reason offered in January for the last-minute decision to unplug TV cameras in California's landmark fight over Proposition 8—the state referendum that banned gay marriage. Before the trial began, federal District Judge Vaughn Walker said he would allow a limited video feed of the proceedings, possibly including a YouTube broadcast. But pro-Prop 8 activists strongly opposed the move, and the U.S. Supreme Court quickly weighed in with an unsigned 5-4 opinion. Scolding the lower court for this video project, the high court sided with the supporters of California's gay-marriage ban, who said they had been subject to death threats, had their cars egged, and experienced professional retaliation after their support for the initiative was disclosed. The conservative majority of the court sympathized with the anti-gay-marriage trial witnesses even though, as Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out in his dissent, these terrified witnesses were "experts or advocates who have either already appeared on television or Internet broadcasts." Still, fear is fear, and the trial went dark.http://www.slate.com/id/2257500/


I have the feeling that this type of intimidation is more wide spread than being discussed. After the Attorney General firings, this fear thing just took off and nothing seems to have been done about it.