Gay marriage opponents take the low road in California

Greg Sargent is right, this is "slimy and desperate." Also stupid. Gay marriage opponents in California are attacking Judge Vaughn Walker, who overturned Prop 8 last year.

Yesterday, same-sex marriage opponents filed a motion to have Walker’s ruling vacated, on the grounds that his being gay and in a long-term relationship amounts to a conflict of interest that should have forced him to recuse himself:

Given that Chief Judge Walker was in a committed, long-term, same-sex relationship throughout this case (and for many years before the case commenced), it is clear that his “impartiality might reasonably [have been] questioned” from the outset. He therefore had, at a minimum, a waivable conflict and was obligated either to recuse himself or to provide “full disclosure on the record of the basis for disqualification,” so that the parties could consider and decide, before the case proceeded further, whether to request his recusal. His failure to do either was a clear violation of Section 455(a), whose “goal ... is to avoid even the appearance of partiality.”

This argument is too clever by half, and relies on the same faulty argument put forth originally in defense of Prop 8: The qualitative judgment that same-sex relationships are inferior. Opponents of same-sex marriage are arguing, in effect, that because Walker was in a long term same-sex relationship, he stood to benefit personally from Prop 8 being overturned. They argue, naturally, that the issue is not Walker’s sexuality per se, but his relationship status. But by that logic the only way a gay or lesbian judge could rule impartially on matters involving gay rights is if they’re celibate.

By that logic, heterosexual judges in relationships should be recused from cases dealing with heterosexual marriage. Divorced judges shouldn't rule in divorce cases. Married judges shouldn't be able to marry people. Or something; applying logic to bigotry rarely works. But it is a strange twist, to have anti-gay bigots arguing that the fact that a person is in a long-term, stable, committed relationship is actually a problem for them. They should make up their minds about what it really is about gay marriage that's so evil.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/rEfC7NJJ9MY/-Gay-marriage-opponents-take-the-low-road-in-California

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