Gay judge's same-sex marriage ruling upheld

[KamaAina]

Source: AP via Yahoo!

A federal judge on Tuesday upheld a gay judge's ruling to strike down California's same-sex marriage ban. 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....

Many legal scholars did not expect Ware to overturn Walker's decision. They said having a judge's impartiality questioned because he is gay is new territory, but efforts to get female judges thrown off gender discrimination cases or Hispanic judges removed from immigration cases have failed.

Theodore Boutrous Jr., part of the legal team representing the two gay couples who filed the lawsuit against Proposition 8, called Cooper's arguments frivolous, offensive and unfortunate. He said Walker was being targeted because he is gay.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110614/ap_on_re_us/us_gay_marriage_trial

---

Noted legal scholar Nelson Muntz replies, "Ha ha!"

Now when do people start getting married again??

[xchrom]

1. Oh Happy awesomeness! Nt

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

2. The Mormon king (or whatever) is gonna be pissed.

[ellie]

3. Woot!

[arcane1]

4. Sweet!! :D

[RKP5637]

5. Wonderful News!!! n/t

[justiceischeap]

6. So, has Prop 8 been overturned yet based on constitutionality?

Has the gay community won this fight yet?

[KamaAina]

8. That's what Judge Walker's ruling did

the bigots are appealing, of course, even though they have dubious legal standing.

[TheWraith]

9. "Winning" is slow in major court cases.

The next step after district court would be taking it to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, assuming that the 9th Circuit is willing to hear said appeal. If they are, then an appeal argument is submitted as it was for the district court, and they rule on it's merit.

If they refuse to hear it, of which there's a decent chance, then the appellants would have to try and take it to the SCOTUS, which is notoriously difficult if the Court of Appeals turns you down.

[justiceischeap]

10. So, it's gonna be a while yet. *Sigh* Thanks! nt.

[TheWraith]

11. Before you can say that it's final, yes. Although the odds shifted in favor of the good guys today.

Every time that they get the door shut on them vastly reduces the odds of them managing any successful challenge.

[SoapBox]

7. Wonderful....

but I'm sure that the Haters will try to come up with some new angle on the Hate, until they can push it to the Supreme Court, so that the Activist Hater Judges can strike us down.

It's all about the Hate ya know...

[brooklynite]

12. If CA ruling is upheld and NY flips this week...

That would bring Marriage Equality into 20% of the country (by State Population). A slippery slope indeed...

[Doctor_J]

13. It would be very nice to draw stark lines between believers in equality

and the others. I rally have no interest in living in a nation run by right-wing wackos.

[justiceischeap]

14. Yes but if any of the Repub front-runners win in '12

They are all for a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage (of course, it's not that, it's preserving the sanctity of marriage).

[Doctor_J]

21. Correct. Then we roll out the "I thought they want smaller government"

and "Why do most of the defenders of marriage have adultery, prostitutes, and divorces in their pasts"?

The hand plays itself

[brooklynite]

24. Won't get it

Under no scenario I've seen will they get 2/3 control of the House and Senate.

[TheWraith]

25. Yeah, a constitutional amendment on ANYTHING remotely controversial is impossible at this point.

Maybe in the past, when the complete details of every vote couldn't be packaged up within the hour and dropped into an ad, it might have been possible to get two thirds on something controversial, like Prohibition. These days? Forget about it.

[Ignis]

23. Thanks for painting a clear picture.

There's a LOT of work to do, but it's nice to see some sort of progress.

[LadyHawkAZ]

15. I don't think they will be able to overturn the ruling

Walker did an awesome job on it, and it's as watertight as a decision can get.

[tomm2thumbs]

16. makes sense, as the article notes

'...efforts to get female judges thrown off gender discrimination cases or Hispanic judges removed from immigration cases have failed.'

I'll wager that the proponents of Prop 8 knew already and were waiting to throw this out as an excuse if their legal arguments failed -- reports say it was not uncommon knowledge in the court. I imagine the Prop 8 legal team may have known it and kept it as a backdoor way out of an unfavorable ruling.

[KamaAina]

17. How about Clarence Thomas deciding race discrimination cases?

Usually in favor of the bigots, I might add. :eyes:

[JTFrog]

18. K&R!

[Warpy]

19. I read his decision when he handed it down

and I knew such a carefully reasoned and researched decision would have to stand.

The attack against him because he happens to be gay, himself, was unwarranted and despicable. They couldn't possibly attack his decision, so they had to attack him.

[EFerrari]

20. Good news on a bad day.

[ej510]

22. My state is moving in the right direction.

[kpete]

26. Prop. 8 ruling: gay judge didn't need to recuse himself

Source: Christian Science Monitor

Prop. 8 ruling: gay judge didn't need to recuse himself
Backers of California's anti-gay marriage initiative, Prop. 8, argued that the judge who declared the law unconstitutional should not have taken the case because he is gay. A federal judge rejected that argument Tuesday.
By Daniel B. Wood, Staff writer / June 14, 2011


A US judge refused to vacate a decision last year that declared California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 unconstitutional. Backers of Prop. 8 had wanted the decision thrown out on the grounds that the judge who made the decision is gay and therefore should have recused himself from the case.

Chief US District Judge James Ware said that requiring a gay judge to recuse himself from a case about gay marriage would have set a dangerous precedent.

“The fact that a federal judge shares a fundamental characteristic with a litigant, or shares membership in a large association such as a religion, has been categorically rejected by federal courts as a sole basis for requiring a judge to recuse her or himself,” wrote Judge Ware.

The decision means the ruling of US District Judge Vaughn Walker remains in effect. Prop. 8 backers have appealed that ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Ultimately, the case could end up before the Supreme Court, many legal analysts say.


Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2011/0614/Prop.-8-ruling-gay-judge-didn-t-need-to-recuse-himself

[tomm2thumbs]

27. notes from the story make complete sense

Walker's "sexual orientation was not a basis for his needing to recuse himself any more than a woman judge of reproductive age is disqualified from hearing a challenge to an abortion law or an African-American judge is disqualified from hearing a race discrimination case," says constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Irvine Law School

"If the argument is valid that Walker necessarily acted out of self interest because he was in a long-term, same-sex relationship, it follows also that a married, heterosexual judge would also act of self-interest and would have to be disqualified,” says Jim Carroll, interim executive director of Equality California

____

good article

[applegrove]

28. Thank god. That would have been really sick if it was accepted as a rational. Imagine

if no minority judge could ever judge minority cases. But would that mean that white men could not judge the same cases because they represent the other side ????? There would be no judges anywhere. Judging would be illegal.

[William769]

29. K&R.