Alex Blaze

Send in the clowns

Filed By Alex Blaze | February 11, 2010 3:00 PM | comments

Filed in: Fundie Watch, Marriage Equality, Media
Tags: Antonin Scalia, gay marriage, homophobic behavior, LGBT, marriage, person, Prop. 8, pugno, staight, trial, vaughn walker




"Enter Judge Walker. In unprecedented form, and to plaintiffs' delight, he has created a circus-like atmosphere throughout. He even violated federal rules by deciding to allow the trial to be broadcast worldwide, but was subsequently shot-down and sharply rebuked by the U.S. Supreme Court for doing so.

If by "violated federal rules" he means "followed Ninth Circuit rules and then found out the Supreme Court didn't like those rules," then he has a point there.

Matt Barber's a clown, but he's speaking for the lizard brain of the Religious Right here. Instead of keeping his big mouth shut like all the others and just passing along the news about Walker without comment, he has to go and whine about how great we all are at intimidating his witnesses (keep it up!).

Considering how what he says contradicts some of the biggest claims Prop 8 supporters made at trial, though, you have to wonder how anyone who's not biased in their favor could possibly buy their arguments.

But we know that they've all been thinking the same thing, as well as a lot of people who sell themselves as the mainstream. Here's Ruth Marcus, who's not the brightest bulb out there but definitely not a fundie either:

"I hope the plaintiffs win and that Walker rules that the same-sex marriage ban violates their constitutional rights," Marcus said. "At the same time, I've got to acknowledge: If I were on the side supporting the ban and found it struck down by a supposedly gay judge, I'd have some questions about whether the judicial deck had been stacked from the start."

So do I need to bust out the Queer Studies 101 here and remind people that every judge has a sexual orientation?

I'm going to make the very easy prediction that if the right loses at trial here we're going to be hearing a lot from them that will show that they don't really believe many of their own arguments. I'm sure they'll say that Walker was biased because his sexual orientation meant he had a stake in one side, as if the argument "same-sex marriage destroys all marriages" doesn't apply anymore and straight people are completely unaffected by same-sex marriage.

Ruth Marcus already wonders if the judge's sexual orientation will affect his decision, but one of the defense's arguments is that they're not discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, just prohibiting certain people from getting married. Was same-sex marriage or were all gay people being voted on during the 2008 elections? Marcus indicates the latter (since we have no idea if Vaughn Walker wants to marry another man), and reality was probably a lot closer to that, but the Prop 8 supporters' basic argument was the former.

It's fairly obvious to me that the only people who'll be affected by this decision will be the people who married or who will eventually marry someone of the same-sex, a law professor in the Advocate reminds us that that isn't the standard judges use to decide if they should recuse themselves.

In my opinion, the only undue bias for a judge in a case like this would be homophobia, along the lines of Antonin Scalia. Homophobes can be both straight and gay, and that sort of bias only works in one direction. If anything, the supporters of Prop 8 should be the ones hoping for a biased judge, which they'll eventually get at the Supreme Court (most likely a majority), so that they'll get legal credence for their silly arguments.

Now, if someone can find proof of Vaughn Walker getting married in 2008 in California, then we'd have something to talk about when it comes to personal interest and bias. Until then, we're all supposed to be pretending that Prop 8 wasn't an attack on gay people themselves, remember?

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As I said in another posting (perhaps it was even on another blog; I don't recall), Gallagher, NOM, conservative groups and religious whackos are going to use Judge Walker's sexual orientation in a request to get a stay of his ruling pending appeal, should he rule Prop 8 violates the Federal Constitution. That request will be made to the 9th Circuit which would, probably, refuse it.

They will then make that request of the United States Supreme Court, which will see Judge Walker's sexual orientation as inherent bias and either: a) Send the case back to the lower court for reconsideration/rehearing, with instructions Walker not be re-assigned to the case, or (and this is much more likely, as it would completely serve the purpose of conservatives);

b) Issue an indefinite stay pending appeal, then never agree to hear the case on appeal, so that the indefinite stay, for all intents and purposes, becomes permanent.

Religon is considered immutable under the United States constitution; whereas sexual perversion is not. The fact that you folks insist on disparaging the constitutional protected right to the freedom of religon in favor of a non existant right to deviant marriage clearly shows you to be the bigots in this discussion.

The fact that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled - 2006 - that there is no constitutional right to same sex marriage and that procreation is a rationale basis with which to base a decision on clearly shows how bias your gay judge is.