Posted on 06/14/2011 2:36:16 PM PDT by NYer
A federal judge on Tuesday dealt a blow to opponents of same-sex marriage by upholding an earlier ruling in favor of such unions -- despite the revelation that the judge behind the earlier ruling is gay and in a relationship.
Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware said former Chief Judge Vaughn Walker did not have to divulge whether he wanted to marry his own gay partner before he declared last year that voter-approved Proposition 8 was unconstitutional.
Lawyers for backers of the ban argued at a hearing Monday that Walker should have recused himself or disclosed his relationship because he and his partner stood to personally benefit from the verdict.
Walker publicly revealed after he retired in February that he is in a 10-year relationship with a man. Rumors that he was gay had circulated before and after he presided over the trial in early 2010.
Ware said the ruling by Walker, who did not attend Monday's hearing, raised important questions and called it the first case in which a judge's same-sex relationship had led to calls for disqualification.
He said there probably were similar struggles when race and gender were the issues.
Many legal scholars did not expect Ware to overturn Walker's decision. They said having a judge's impartiality questioned because he is gay is new territory, but efforts to get female judges thrown off gender discrimination cases or Hispanic judges removed from immigration cases have failed.
Theodore Boutrous Jr., part of the legal team representing the two gay couples who filed the lawsuit against Proposition 8, called Cooper's arguments frivolous, offensive and unfortunate. He said Walker was being targeted because he is gay.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
In our society now, the minority rules!
I believe it could be statistically shown that gay normers usually are in favor of “gay” marriage. Whereas perhaps only a minority of women would be hypersensitive to gender discrimination issues. It’s possible that the defense did insufficient research.
While Walker’s decision was bad, Ware’s decision was correct.
Exactly. This challenge was a waste of resources.
“Exactly. This challenge was a waste of resources.”
And it was a stupid challenge in that they were attacking the judge and not his decision.
Never a good strategy to attack a member of the Black Robe Mafia.
Goes to show the people of California that voting on props is worthless....they voted against same-sex marriage props how many times now only to find that their majority votes amounted to nothing, absolutely nothing. =.=
Why bother voting, anymore?
What it tells us is that when tomorrow a judge forces us to do business with their cops (ie. force us to accept their fiat currency at the overprice), then we will be at war. It’s all anarchic and direct graft from here on out. They are all tainted.
Even the best people getting involved with the blue shirts and black robes become quickly very corrupt and convenienced.
I wasn’t just any old “proposition”. Wasn’t it a constitutional amendment? How can the Constitution be unconstitutional?
One of these tyrants in a black robe backs up another tyrant in a black robe. I’m shocked! Shocked I tell you!
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