Prop 8 Case Puts Judge's Sexual Orientation in the News
The claimed sexual orientation of the federal judge overseeing the so-called Prop 8 case is a nonissue, writes Erwin Chemerinsky in an opinion column in the Advocate.
“Female judges of reproductive age are allowed to decide cases involving the availability of abortion,” points out Chemerinsky, a constitutional scholar who is dean of the new law school at the University of California at Irvine. “Catholic judges can hear challenges to abortion laws even if their church threatens to deny them communion if they support abortion rights.”
So, regardless of the judge’s own orientation, he should be able to preside fairly in the ongoing San Francisco trial over the constitutionality of a California ballot measure banning same-sex marriage.
But that hasn’t prevented supporters of the same-sex marriage ban from focusing on the alleged pro-gay bias created by Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s own orientation, writes columnist Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post. Many years earlier, the article notes, when Walker was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, he was criticized by those on the other side of the aisle for representing the U.S. Olympic Committee in a suit against a San Francisco “Gay Olympics” group over its use of the name.
Walker declined to comment on his role in the ongoing same-sex marriage case, but noted “life is full of irony” when reminded of the controversy over his representation of the U.S. Olympic Committee, reports the San Francisco Chronicle in a lengthy Sunday article about the judge’s background.
“We have no idea whether the report is true or not,” writes the NOM Blog of the National Institute for Marriage, pointing to the Chronicle article in a post that headlines Walker’s claimed sexual orientation. “But we do know one really big important fact about Judge Walker: He’s been an amazingly biased and one-sided force throughout this trial, far more akin to an activist than a neutral referee. That’s no secret at all.”
Additional coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Federal Judge in Gay Marriage Case Described as Unpredictable”
Connecticut Law Tribune: “Circus Trial Begins Over Proposition 8”
