Let’s be totally honest here. The National Organization For Marriage (NOM) hates us. I don’t use the word “hate” lightly. But, as I wrote last week, a just-released Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll found that a large segment of our fellow countrymen, in fact, a majority of Republicans, don’t want us to marry, teach their kids, receive benefits, or serve in the military. What else can you call that? Dislike? Uncomfortableness? No. It’s hate, pure, unadulterated hate. And now it’s entered the public forum surrounding the federal Prop 8 trial.
As it turns out, sixty-five year-old Vaughn Walker, the federal district court judge appointed in 1989 by President George H. W. Bush (41 – GWB’s father) and who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate unanimously, is unqualified — according to Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage — because he is gay.
Well, as you know, we gays stick together like peas in a pod. Like white on rice. Like birds of a feather. Like glue. Like… oh, please!
Bottom line is that Brian is throwing out the “gay card.” Because Walker is gay, Brown’s “thinking” goes, he therefore, is biased. If Brown rules against us, and says Prop 8 is constitutional, will Brian still cry “bias” and demand a retrial? Of course not. He’ll come up with some other tactic, some other way to claim “fairness.” Bias, methinks, is in the eye of the beholder.
Referring to a report Sunday in the San Francisco Chronicle, which, of course, as usual, he doesn’t link to, for fear his readers will actually read the truth and stop listening to his lies and hate, Brian writes,
“We have no idea whether the report is true or not. 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.”
“Protect Marriage, the defendants in this case are effectively being held hostage by Judge Walker and cannot really comment.”
Yeah, right…
You know those damned “activist judges,” who are only activists if they’re against you, Brian!
He then goes on to list a “series of rulings” he doesn’t like, and that, therefore, “prove” Walker’s “gayness” equals bias.
Walker is, as the Chronicle reports, openly gay, though he “has never taken pains to disguise – or advertise – his orientation.”
Melanie Nathan over at Lez Get Real writes,
“But who cares? We do not care here in San Francisco, mostly because we accept that being gay in high office is normal, being gay and abiding one’s oath is normal, being gay and applying law correctly and fairly is normal. As long as his religious views do not influence judgment, we do not care that Alito is a man, that Bader Ginsburg is a woman and nor do we care that Clarence Thomas is African America. We understand that their judgments are unlikely to be impacted by these facts. We also do not “out†Ruth Bader Ginsberg as a “straight women.â€
Exactly. But that degree of fairness is beyond Brian’s grasp.
And never mind the fact that Walker was counsel to the United States Olympic Committee in a lawsuit that prohibited the use of the title “Gay Olympics” by the Gay Olympics. Never mind that he has been a federal judge for twenty years. The mere fact that he is gay makes him biased.
Nice try, Brian, but we’re not falling for that bull. Perhaps you think that a man can’t keep his personal beliefs in check — as your daily assault on the LGBTQ community proves — but we know that it is possible to be gay and fair at the same time. Pity you are incapable of such strength of character, or wisdom.
Brian closes by saying this:
“There’s only one saving grace to Judge Walker’s bias. It’s so big, and so obvious, not only the American public but the Supreme Court itself is already aware we have bias in the trial judge presiding.”
I’ll close by promising this:
The day will come when small men like Brian Brown are no longer allowed to ply their wares on their ignorant, unsuspecting followers. I, for one, will continue to fight their lies, their bigotry, their hate, as long as I live, until it is no longer necessary to do so.