{"id":810,"date":"2011-05-04T09:03:50","date_gmt":"2011-05-04T13:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=810"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:57:40","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:57:40","slug":"judge-walkers-sexual-orientation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/05\/04\/judge-walkers-sexual-orientation\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Walker\u2019s Sexual Orientation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span>Marshall Thompson\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

It appears that Charles Cooper, lead counsel for the Prop 8 defendants, is getting desperate.\u00a0 Last week, he filed a\u00a0motion<\/a>\u00a0to vacate the judgment of the federal district court that ruled against him because the judge was gay.<\/p>\n

Judge Vaughn Walker\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0earlier in April, after retiring from the bench, that he was in a ten-year committed relationship with man.\u00a0 Cooper\u2019s\u00a0brief<\/a>\u00a0for the motion to vacate the judgment lists three main reasons why Walker crossed the line:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He was in a committed same-sex relationship.
\n2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He didn\u2019t tell anyone about it.
\n3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He never stated clearly that he did not want to get married in California.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span>On its face, it seems ridiculous. Professor\u00a0Erwin Chemerinsky<\/a>\u00a0points out that if Walker couldn\u2019t rule on the Prop 8 controversy because he was gay, then women judges couldn\u2019t rule on any women\u2019s rights issues and black judges couldn\u2019t rule on any civil rights cases.\u00a0 On the other side of the coin, a married straight person couldn\u2019t rule on the issue either since, according to the defenders of Prop 8, the ban on same-sex marriage benefits \u201ctraditional marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defenders of Prop 8, however, insist that their objection is not based on Walker\u2019s sexual orientation\u2014only his\u00a0committed relationship<\/a>.\u00a0 I find this horribly ironic.\u00a0 If Walker adhered to the ignorant and destructive stereotype of the \u201cpromiscuous\u201d gay man, then he would be OK.\u00a0 But since he lives in a stable and committed relationship, then suddenly he\u2019s unethical.<\/p>\n

The final oddity of the\u00a0brief<\/a>\u00a0is that it relies on Walker\u2019s findings that Prop 8 harms same-sex couples.\u00a0 Cooper argues that Prop 8 definitely hurts same-sex couples in a significant way and, therefore, Walker had a significant stake in the outcome of the case.\u00a0 So, if it wasn\u2019t already obvious, the Prop 8 defenders want to hurt same-sex couples.\u00a0 I believe that is called animus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Marshall Thompson\u00a0 It appears that Charles Cooper, lead counsel for the Prop 8 defendants, is getting desperate.\u00a0 Last week, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-d4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}