Prop 8: Chief Judge Ware Rules Against Anti-Gay Group “Protect Marriage”

Chief Judge James Ware has ruled that former-Chief Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling, finding Prop 8 is unconstitutional, cannot be voided or vacated because Walker is gay, and is in a long-term same-sex relationship. Protect Marriage, aka, “Yes On 8,” had argued that Walker had a responsibility to recuse himself because he stood to gain from his ruling.

Demonstrating the extreme ludicrousness of Protect Marriage’s argument, Ware found that Judge Walker actually “had nothing to disclose,” and had Walker specifically disclosed his sexual orientation, he would have been exhibiting “an overabundance of caution,” setting, “a pernicious precedent.” Ware also suggested that Walker’s homosexuality was “irrelevant personal information.”

Writing, “[t]his standard does not mandate recusal upon the mere ‘unsubstantiated suspicion of personal bias or prejudice’,” Ware, in his decision, seems to have suggested that Charles Cooper, arguing for Protect Marriage, was “hypersensitive or unduly suspicious,” and not a “well-informed, thoughtful observer” who “understand[s] all the relevant facts” and “has examined the record and law.”

Ware adds that “it would not be reasonable to regard a fact as bringing a judge’s impartiality into question if doing so would institute a ‘double standard for minority judges’ whereby the fact that a judge is gay, or black, or female would “raise doubts about [that judge’s] impartiality.”

“In addition, the Court recognizes that a fact is not necessarily a basis for questioning a judge’s impartiality merely because that fact might lead a segment of the public to question the judge’s impartiality. Reasonableness is not determined on the basis of what a particular group of individuals may think, nor even on the basis of what a majority of individuals in a group believe to be the case.”

Calling Protect Marriage’s argument, “unreasonable,” and at times, “misplaced,” Ware adds their argument “depends upon the assumption that a judge who is in a relationship has an interest in getting married which is so powerful that it would render that judge incapable of performing his duties.”

Ware continues, stating that, “the mere fact that a judge is in a relationship with another person–whether of the same or the opposite sex–does not ipso facto imply that the judge must be so interested in marrying that person that he would be unable to exhibit the impartiality which, it is presumed, all federal judges maintain.”

 

READ: Prop 8: Judge’s Questions Suggest Loss For Anti-Marriage Equality Group

READ: Prop 8: Back in Court Today To Prove Being Gay Isn’t Reason To Throw Out A Case