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Dismissed "Expert," Sherif Gergis

State's Case Against Same-Sex Marriage Starts With a Huge Dud

March 3, 2014

U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman threw out the state’s first witness in Michigan’s gay marriage trial, concluding the Princeton-educated philosophy expert had nothing to offer in this case, Tresa Baldas reports in the Free Press.

“He’s very eloquent … but right now, all he is offering to us is mainly his opinions,” U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman said of the witness. “The court does not believe ... that he should be allowed to testify.”

The plaintiffs' attorneys argued Girgis, who is still a student, is not a lawyer, child development expert, psychologist or expert in Michigan law. He has no experience in the issues that matter in this case. He has never before been an expert witness in a trial.

The witness dismissal came as a blow to the state in the case, in which two female nurses are seeking to overturn Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage so that they can marry and adopt each others’ children.

Girgis was born in Cairo and grew up in Delaware. He majored in philosophy at Princeton, where he won several academic prizes, including the 2007 Dante Prize for the nation’s best undergraduate essay on Dante, which was turned into a book.

Girgis has been an active voice on the Princeton campus addressing political and social issues as the president of the Elizabeth Anscombe Society, a student organization that promotes traditionally conservative conceptions of marriage, family and sexuality, and as editor-in-chief of the Princeton Tory, a conservative magazine. He also has contributed to The Daily Princetonian.

His senior thesis on sex ethics won the Princeton prizes for best thesis in ethics and best thesis in philosophy. Upon graduating Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude in 2008, he went on to earn a master’s degree in moral, political and legal philosophy at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He is now pursing his Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton and a law degree at Yale Law School.

In other news from the trial, the Detroit News reports Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown said Monday she will immediately issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples if U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman decides to lift the state’s ban on gay marriages.

Last fall, when some legal experts expected Friedman to rule in favor of overturning the bans, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette sent county clerks a two-page memo telling them not issue marriage licenses, Brown said.

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