Gay-Marriage Foe Sticks to Views on Pedophilia

A proponent of California's same-sex marriage ban testified today 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 seeking to overturn Proposition 8 called Hak-Shing William Tam in their efforts to prove that bias toward gays fueled the campaign to pass the measure.

Prop 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. Tam is secretary of a Chinese-American evangelical Christian group whose site contained a link to another article claiming gays were 12 times more likely to molest children; under questioning, Tam said he agreed with that view though he could cite no evidence to support it. (More Prop 8 trial stories.)