American Foundation for Equal Rights

AP: Prop. 8 backer stands by views on pedophilia

A proponent of California’s same-sex marriage ban testified Thursday that he thinks gays are more likely to be pedophiles and that allowing them to wed would lead to efforts to lower the age at which teenagers can legally have sex with adults.

Lawyers for two couples suing to overturn the ban, known as Proposition 8, called Hak-Shing William Tam of San Francisco to testify as a hostile witness to prove that bias toward gays fueled the campaign to pass the measure.

Proposition 8 sponsors have tried to distance themselves from Tam, even though his name appeared alongside ballot arguments for the measure in voter information pamphlets during the 2008 campaign.

In federal court, attorney David Boies spent time walking Tam through a Web site for a Chinese-American evangelical Christian group that featured a headline reading “Studies Show That Homosexuality Is Linked to Pedophilia.”

Read the rest of Lisa Leff’s AP article here.