Hak-Shing William Tam was one of five people who formally intervened to defend the state from a federal lawsuit filed against California. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown have declined to mount a defense on behalf of the state.
Tam and the other four interveners were also the official proponents of Proposition 8, which passed in November 2008 and was upheld four months later by the California Supreme Court.
"I dedicated the majority of my working hours between January 2008 and November 2008 toward qualifying Proposition 8 for the ballot and campaigning for its enactment," the San Francisco resident told the judge in May in urging to be named an official party to the lawsuit.
On Friday, Tam told the court that he was harassed and his property vandalized during the campaign, and feared similar retribution if he continued to represent gay marriage foes' interest in the lawsuit and trial, which is scheduled to start Monday in San Francisco.
"In the past I have received threats on my life, had my property vandalized and am recognized on the streets due to my association with Proposition 8," Tam said in a court filing. "Now that the subject lawsuit is going to trial, I fear I will get more publicity, be more recognizable and that the risk of harm to me and my family will increase."
In the months leading up the trial, lawyers for two unmarried same-sex couples on whose behalf the case was brought complained that Proposition 8's sponsors were withholding evidence to which the plaintiffs were entitled by citing a letter they had uncovered written by Tam to members of his church during the campaign.
In the letter, Tam outlined what he described as the disastrous consequences for allowing gays to marry in California.
"One by one, other states would fall into Satan's hands," he wrote. "Every child, when growing up, would fantasize marrying someone of the same sex. More children would become homosexuals."
The contents could come up in the trial because one of the issues is whether the measure's backers were motivated by anti-gay bias.
