A frivolous and dangerous challenge to last year’s ruling by a gay federal judge that shot down the state’s ban on gay marriage has been tossed out.
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.
Just so the issue is clear: This ruling was not about same-sex marriage, but about the attempt to undercut judges. If the challenge had been upheld and Walker’s ruling was overturned, it would have made it impossible for gay judges to rule on gay issues — and opened the door for challenges to decisions made by black judges on racial issues, Latino judges on immigration issues, women judges on gender issues and so on.
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