Hate Messages for Prop. 8 Plaintiffs

WARNING:The following story and audio clips contain graphic language.

Two plaintiffs in the high-profile Proposition 8 case were subjected to multiple vitriolic and antigay voice mails during the 2010 trial from a San Francisco man who was later convicted of making threatening telephone calls to then–House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

According to a 2010 Berkeley, Calif., police department report, Sandra Stier, who with her partner, Kristin Perry, filed suit against Prop. 8 in 2009 along with a Burbank gay male couple, received about 13 harassing messages at their Berkeley home during a two-day period in January at the end of the trial’s testimony phase.

Using an unlisted cell phone with a Newport News, Va., area number, the caller made repeated biblical references to homosexuality as well as antigay slurs. Many of the calls were made in the middle of the night or early-morning hours. Listen to the voice mails below.

A former law enforcement agent who provided audio recordings of the voice mails to The Advocate said the phone number used by the caller matched one revealed in a federal grand jury subpoena involving the investigation of Gregory Lee Giusti, 49. Giusti made at least 48 calls in February and March of 2010 to Pelosi, including calls to her Washington, D.C., residence, one of her Northern California residences, her San Francisco district office, and her husband’s San Francisco office. Giusti used a Magic Jack device in an attempt to conceal the origin of the calls, according to a 2010 affidavit by FBI supervisory special agent Bryan S. Smith.

“You stinkin’ lesbos make me sick,” the caller, identified by multiple sources as Giusti, said in one voice mail to Stier and Perry. “I hope you lose your case. ... Marriage is between one man and one woman only. That’s the way God arranged it, set it up. Two people of the same sex cannot procreate. And no, getting yourself artificially inseminated is not procreation in God’s eyes. Or two faggots can’t procreate no matter how much you want to [expletive] each other.”

In another, Giusti told the couple, who have children, “I think that’s really disgusting that you’re raising, um, kids, I think the law should state lesbos and faggots shouldn’t be around kids. ...

“I hope you enjoy burning in hell, for that’s where you’re going to go when you die, for the Bible clearly states that lesbianism and homosexuality is an abomination in God’s eyes,” Giusti said. “And you can tell those other faggots doing the case with you that I hope they both die of AIDS.”

Listen to audio from the voicemails below. Story continues on following page.