- Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker
San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross on Sunday “outed” Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker as a gay man. Walker, by the way, is the jurist who will, in the next few weeks, be issuing a ruling on whether California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage in that state violates the U.S. Constitution.
In their article, Matier and Ross said Walker’s orientation is “the biggest open secret” in the Prop 8 lawsuit, and that gay lawyers and politicians in San Francisco don’t think the judge’s personal orientation will have any effect on his ruling. (Hmmm. Big surprise there. Surely Matier and Ross didn’t expect the gays to say the fact that the judge is gay gives the plaintiffs in the case an advantage, did they?)
But if the plaintiffs — the folks challenging Prop 8 — win, you can be DAMN SURE the defendants are going to make a big deal out of the fact that Walker is gay. And what if the defendants will in Walker’s court? What will the gay folks say about a gay judge that ruled against them? Apparently, Walker already has some experience with that: As Matier and Ross point out, he had to fight the reputation of being anti-gay when he was trying to get to be a judge because back in the 1980s, he successfully represented the U.S. Olympic Committee in a lawsuit to keep the San Francisco Gay Games from using the name “Gay Olympics.”
The columnists also point out that the case was assigned to Walker; he didn’t “seek it out,” and that he was appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush, someone not seen as particularly gay-friendly.
So, what do you think? Is it an advantage for gay marriage supporters that the judge hearing the case is gay? Or is it a hidden pitfall that will work against the gay marriage cause in the long run?
They’ll make a stink about it if they lose, but that is also like saying Sotomayor was a bad Hispanic.
Regardless of whether or not the judge is gay the opposition will look for some way to scream some crap about judicial activism, if it happens that they lose. So there’s really no way to win in the end. However, as long as the judge remains fair throughout and, if he sides with gay rights, issues a well made opinion then I don’t think that it really should matter.
Of course, if it was the other way around and they had some crazy fundamentalist mormon I’d probably be on the other side screaming discrimination. Crap, can’t we just flip a coin?
Whatever it is, Judge Walker’s decision will be appealed. It’s on its path to SCOTUS either way.