Massachusetts Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage; Judge Orders Peterson to Stand Trial; Police Raid Neverland Ranch
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. There is a be careful what you wish for quality to our lead story tonight, the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision that all but legalized gay marriage in that state. Could it turn out that that decision creates a political rallying cry for those who oppose such things, and there are many, that it becomes the wedge issue of the campaign ahead that this day becomes the perfect example of the law of unintended consequences? It is part of a complicated and emotional story that leads the program and begins the whip. CNN's Dan Lothian starts us off from Boston, Dan a headline from you tonight.</s>DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Aaron, it was a landmark decision here in the state of Massachusetts, the state becoming the first in the nation to essentially legalize same-sex marriages but, of course, that won't take place for about 180 days. We'll explain why in just a few minutes. As you can imagine this is controversial. Those who were pushing for it are elated. Those who are against it are angry -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Dan, thank you, good to see you tonight. Next to a pair of stories that are relatively new to the program, first the murder of Laci Peterson and now the murder trial of her husband Scott. CNN's David Mattingly has been covering the hearing in Modesto, David a headline.</s>DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a preliminary hearing fails to produce a smoking gun but more than enough for a judge to decide its time for Scott Peterson to stand trial for the murders of his wife Laci and their unborn child -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: David, thank you. And finally, strange and strangely familiar developments regarding the singer Michael Jackson, a lot of secrecy as usual but enough there to raise an eyebrow, CNN's Frank Buckley is near Santa Barbara, California, Frank a headline.</s>FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, on the same day that Michael Jackson's newest CD came out investigators descended on his Neverland Ranch here. A source with knowledge of the investigation telling CNN they are looking into allegations of child molestation.</s>BROWN: Frank, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly. Also tonight, President Bush's trip to Britain what he hopes to accomplish there, how he will be received. Later the missing brother of Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean a 30-year-old mystery that may finally have been solved. As we continue our series on the assassination of President Kennedy, the 40th anniversary this week, we'll talk with former President Gerald Ford. Mr. Ford is the last surviving member of the Warren Commission which investigated JFK's death. And we'll end, as always, with a check of tomorrow morning's papers, all that and more in the hour ahead. We begin tonight with a passage from the decision handed down today by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Margaret Marshall, the Chief Justice, writing for a narrow majority on the subject of marriage. "Marriage" she writes "is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and support. It brings stability to our society," a plainspoken defense of marriage as you could ever hope to see. Unless, or you happen to see it precisely the opposite way as an assault, the latest of several on marriage and society. We have two reports tonight, a serious discussion as well. We begin with CNN's Dan Lothian.</s>LOTHIAN (voice-over): Linda Davies and Gloria Bailey have been partners for 32 years but it took a Massachusetts high court ruling for one of them to finally pop the question.</s>LINDA DAVIES, PLAINTIFF: I finally asked her to marry me because she told me she couldn't answer until we could legally do it and I'm happy to tell the world she said yes.</s>LOTHIAN: Their opponents are not celebrating, instead calling the ruling demoralizing.</s>PHIL TRAVIS (D), MASSACHUSETTS STATE REP.: I think it flies in the face of what we know in Massachusetts as marriage and have demonstrated since our founding.</s>LOTHIAN: This case began winding its way through the courts in 2001 when seven Massachusetts same-sex couples were denied marriage licenses from their city or town halls. GLAD, the gay and lesbian organization, filed a lawsuit which ended up in the state Supreme Court and resulted in a 4-3 landmark decision.</s>MARY BONAUTO, PLAINTIFF'S LAWYER: Finally all families in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will have the opportunity to be equal families under the law.</s>LOTHIAN: The court concluded that: "Barring an individual from the protections, benefits and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex, violates the Massachusetts constitution." No wedding bells yet. The court has given the legislature 180 days to "take whatever actions it may deem necessary." What that means, say legal experts, is unclear.</s>PAUL MARTINEK, EDITOR, "LAWYERS WEEKLY": The court has clearly put the ball in the court of the legislature. It's up to them to decide what to do while the court hasn't clearly said what the legislature can do.</s>LOTHIAN: In Vermont, the legislature was given a choice by the court, marriage or civil unions. Lawmakers chose civil unions. In Hawaii and Alaska, high courts also ruled in favor of same-sex marriages but in both cases the legislatures amended their constitutions to ban them. In Massachusetts, same-sex couples are confident there are no options to derail their dreams and equally confident opponents promising a fight.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The court I believe has overstepped its bounds.</s>LOTHIAN: What lawmakers here are looking at is that constitutional amendment which would essentially lay out marriage as in between a man and a woman but that couldn't get before the voters before 2006, so barring anything that legal experts don't see at this point gay couples could get married in 180 days -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Is there any talk of a middle road here, a compromise that says no to marriage but yes to civil unions in the way that Vermont did?</s>LOTHIAN: Well that is something that state lawmakers have been discussing for quite some time but at this point it seems like it is too late for that to happen. The court has ruled and lawmakers are saying they have few options at this point. All they have is that constitutional amendment. As I mentioned, they don't see anything happening with that until 2006. By then many couples could be married for several years.</s>BROWN: Dan, thank you, Dan Lothian our Boston Bureau Chief tonight. Years ago the woman's movement had a slogan "the personal is political" is how it went. Over the years any number of causes have picked up on the notion from all sides of the political spectrum. It's gotten to the point that when it comes to everything from the bedroom to the death bed it would be hard to say that anything isn't political anymore and that's doubly so in an election year. That side of the story from CNN's Jeff Greenfield.</s>JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): You'd expect that gay rights groups would be celebrating the ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Court but there's another place where they might well have been swapping high-fives, the West Wing of the White House, why? Because the ruling puts the whole gay marriage question squarely into the political arena and that's just about the last thing Democratic presidential contenders want. (on camera): Now, to understand the Democrats' dilemma you have to go back to last June to a U.S. Supreme Court decision on sodomy and to the political fallout that case triggered. (voice-over): Back in June, the high court in a 6-3 decision said there were no valid grounds on which a state could punish private sex acts among consenting adults, gay or straight. In a blistering dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said this decision called into question just about every law protecting what he called order and morality, including laws banning adult incest, prostitution, and same-sex marriages. Apparently, concerns about gay marriage triggered a sharp change in public opinion on gay rights in general. In a CNN-USA Today Gallup poll back in May, 60 percent had said that homosexual relations between consenting adults should be legal. By July, that number dropped to 48 percent and last month voters said by a 26 point margin that they oppose gay marriage. As for the major Democratic presidential contenders, all of them favor some sort of civil union and all oppose gay marriage and now the Massachusetts Supreme Court has raised that specter again. Yes, this latest decision involves an interpretation of the state constitution but the United States Constitution has a full faith and credit clause. It requires one state to honor the holdings of another. That's why your California marriage, for instance, is valid everywhere else. Now it was just this fear that some state might legalize gay marriage that led the Congress to pass and President Clinton to sign the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It says, among other things, that marriage means one man, one woman. But here's the catch. What if the U.S. court's sodomy decision means there are no valid grounds for a state to refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage? In that case, the Defense of Marriage Act is out and a gay marriage in one state would have to be recognized in every state. President Bush has already said where he stands on this matter.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman and I think we ought to codify that one way or the other.</s>GREENFIELD: That view by the way is somewhat different than the one Vice President Cheney, one of whose children is openly gay, offered during the 2000 vice presidential debate.</s>DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area.</s>GREENFIELD (on camera): It's possible, of course, that Massachusetts will act to remove this issue from the political arena by amending its own state constitution and defining marriage as one man, one woman. That's what Hawaii did. But that will take time and meanwhile this whole gay marriage question will be squarely inside the political arena exactly the kind of hot button issue that has vexed the Democrats for so long. Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.</s>BROWN: We'll have more on this in our next segment, a debate, a discussion really. Joining us conservative writer Bill Bennett and gay rights activist Joan Garry that's in the next section tonight. To other things now, to no one's surprise a California Court has ordered Scott Peterson to stand trial for the murder of his wife Laci and their unborn child. The threshold for a decision like this is not very high. The state doesn't have to prove very much but the hearing went on for days and days and gave us a glimpse of how each side will play what is truly a life or death game when the trial actually begins the report tonight from CNN's David Mattingly.</s>MATTINGLY (voice-over): After weeks of arguments and evidence, a judge wasted no time at the end of this preliminary hearing immediately ordering Scott Peterson to stay in jail awaiting trial for the murders of his wife Laci and their unborn child.</s>LEE PETERSON, DEFENDANT'S FATHER: We're not surprised but the trial is going to be something again.</s>MATTINGLY: Peterson's parents exited the courthouse after listening to detectives describe how Scott was arrested in April in a car loaded with clothes, camping equipment and nearly $15,000 cash, how Scott and his girlfriend Amber Frey exchanged 241 phone calls in 93 days, more than 50 of them in the week after Laci was reported missing and how Scott came to Amber crying two weeks before Laci's disappearance and told her he had lost his wife. In one call taped by police two weeks after Laci disappeared court transcripts shown to reporters show an angry Frey demanding answers. "How did you lose her then before she was lost? Explain that" she said. Peterson replied "there's different kinds of loss, Amber." Frey had already come forward to police at the time of this call. It was apparently the first time Peterson attempted to explain his marriage and Laci's disappearance another piece in the prosecution's puzzle but in a case that has yet to produce a smoking gun.</s>MARK GERAGOS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: We're gratified at least that we're this much closer to trial and hopefully at trial vindication for Scott.</s>MATTINGLY: Defense attorney Mark Geragos will attempt to overturn the judge's decision, arguing there was not enough evidence presented to send Peterson to trial. There's also the issue of where to have the trial. The defense may argue that notoriety of the case may make it impossible for Scott Peterson to get a fair trial anywhere near Modesto, a concern shared by prosecutors.</s>JOHN GOOLD, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: If we can have this trial held here we want the trial held here. We do not want the trial held though if it's not going to be properly done, if the jury pool is so biased that the defendant can't get a fair trial because that doesn't work for anybody.</s>MATTINGLY: Wherever an impartial is eventually found for this case the question remains what do prosecutors have to show the jury that cinches the case against Scott Peterson? After 11 days of testimony we have before us what is essentially a circumstantial case, a lot of strange behavior by Scott Peterson, one hair found in his boat that may or may not belong to Laci Peterson and one girlfriend -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Well, let me just turn that around on you for a second, not so much what the prosecution has to show because there's a lot of strong feelings out there. What does the -- where does the defense case seem to lie? Where is the strength of the defense case?</s>MATTINGLY: Leading up to this preliminary hearing there was a lot of discussion from sources inside the defense at times about theories, about that Laci was abducted by a satanic cult and murdered in some kind of ritual. They hinted around at possibly looking at the fact that the baby was born before -- the baby was born alive and other elements that might play into that theory but, again, that theory did not come up in this preliminary hearing. That is something that the defense might try to use to get some sort of reasonable doubt on the part of the jury when this does go to trial.</s>BROWN: David, thank you very much, David Mattingly in Modesto. Tonight seems to be the night for such things. From Modesto, we move south in California to Neverland, from Scott Peterson to Michael Jackson. Police today descended on his mansion. People started asking the same old uncomfortable questions about the singer's relationship with young children, reporting for us tonight CNN's Frank Buckley.</s>BUCKLEY (voice-over): More than 60 investigators from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department and District Attorney's Office descended on Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch to execute a search warrant, a source with knowledge of the investigation telling CNN they are looking into allegations of child molestation. Entertainer Michael Jackson was not home and he hasn't been at the Neverland Ranch for two and a half weeks according to his spokesman who said in a statement: "We cannot comment on law enforcement's investigation because we do not yet know what it is about." A Jackson employee who was at the home when the search warrant was executed says he has never witnessed any improper behavior.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been working here for too long, 14 years and I never see anything wrong, anything strange, so he loves the kids, all the kids.</s>BUCKLEY: In 1994, Jackson reached an undisclosed financial settlement with a 14-year-old boy who said he had stayed at Neverland Ranch and alleged sexual molestation. Jackson maintained his innocence and was never charged with a crime. Earlier this year, though, he raised eyebrows when he told British journalist Martin Bashir that he sometimes shares his bed with children at the Neverland Ranch but Jackson told Bashir: "It's not sexual -- we're going to sleep. I tuck them in."</s>BRYAN MICHAEL STOLLER, JACKSON FRIEND: If he says that they shared a bed then he meant that he shared a bed like a father and a son would share a bed. I think if there was anything that was sexual he wouldn't have even brought that up.</s>BUCKLEY: And, Aaron, tonight there are still investigators here at the Neverland Ranch, some 11 hours after they arrived to begin executing this search warrant. It isn't clear what, if anything, they've removed. We're hoping to get some answers tomorrow during a news conference with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff and the district attorney -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Just quickly all the documents here sealed?</s>BUCKLEY: That's right. With the search warrant it's going to be at least ten days before we know exactly what the contents of the search warrant are and they could remain sealed even beyond that.</s>BROWN: Frank, thank you, Frank Buckley out west tonight. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll hear from both sides on the gay marriage issue. Later, with President Bush now in Britain we'll look at what he hopes to accomplish during a state visit there. And as the 40th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination approaches we talk with former President Gerald Ford, the last surviving member of the Warren Commission. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.