Posted by
Defend America on Sunday, February 07, 2010 12:06:25 PM
Judge Walker’s Skewed Judgment [Ed Whelan]
According to this column in today’s San Francisco Chronicle, “The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage
being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay.”
In
terms of his judicial performance in the anti-Proposition 8 case, the
bottom-line question that matters isn’t whether Walker is straight or
gay. It’s whether he is capable of ruling impartially. I
have no reason to doubt that there are homosexuals who could preside
impartially over this case, just as I have no reason to doubt that
there are heterosexuals whose bias in favor of, or against, same-sex
marriage would unduly skew their handling of the case.
From the outset, Walker’s entire course
of conduct in the anti-Prop 8 case has reflected a manifest design to
turn the lawsuit into a high-profile, culture-transforming,
history-making, Scopes-style show trial of Prop 8’s sponsors. Consider his series of controversial—and, in many instances, unprecedented—decisions:
Take, for example, Walker’s resort
to procedural shenanigans and outright illegality in support of his
fervent desire to broadcast the trial, in utter disregard of (if not
affirmatively welcoming) the harassment and abuse that pro-Prop 8
witnesses would reasonably anticipate. Walker’s decision was ultimately blocked by an extraordinary (and fully warranted) stay order by the Supreme Court in an opinion that was plainly a stinging rebuke of Walker’s lack of impartiality.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Nzk5N2QzNDAwYmRjMzJlYzRkZTFjOGM1MzVkNjhlZWU=