Over the weekend, the San Francisco Chronicle reported "the biggest open secret" of the recently concluded landmark federal challenge to Proposition 8: U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker is gay and his sexuality was a "non-issue" during the trial.
Many gay politicians in San Francisco and lawyers who have had dealings with Walker say the 65-year-old jurist, appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, has never taken pains to disguise - or advertise - his orientation. They also don't believe it will influence how he rules on the case he's now hearing - whether Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure approved by state voters to ban same-sex marriage, unconstitutionally discriminates against gays and lesbians....
Walker has declined to talk about anything involving the Prop. 8 case outside court, and he wouldn't comment to us when we asked about his orientation and whether it was relevant to the lawsuit.
Many San Francisco gays still hold Walker in contempt for a case he took when he was a private attorney, when he represented the U.S. Olympic Committee in a successful bid to keep San Francisco's Gay Olympics from infringing on its name. "Life is full of irony," the judge replied when we reminded him about that episode.
And did he have any concerns about being characterized as gay? "No comment."
Shortly after our conversation, we heard from a federal judge who counts himself as a friend and confidant of Walker's. He said he had spoken with Walker and was concerned that "people will come to the conclusion that (Walker) wants to conceal his sexuality."
"He has a private life and he doesn't conceal it, but doesn't think it is relevant to his decisions in any case, and he doesn't bring it to bear in any decisions," said the judge, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the Prop. 8 trial.
"Is it newsworthy?" he said of Walker's orientation, and laughed. "Yes."
He said it was hard to ignore the irony that "in the beginning, when (Walker) sought to be a judge, a major obstacle he had to overcome was the perception that he was anti-gay."
National Center for Lesbian Rights' Kate Kendell believes Walker's sexuality will likely be mentioned by Prop 8 supporters if they lose the case. Andrew Pugno, the defense counsel for the Prop 8 side, denies this and adds, "We are not going to say anything about that."
Of course they won't.
It doesn't seem very likely that objections to the judge's ruling based on his sexuality will get any legal traction—the Perry v. Schwarzenegger case was assigned to Walker at random and the judge has ruled against gays previously. But using that same argument, might as well prohibit black judges from ruling on any racial discrimination case, female judges from ruling on sexual harassment cases, or, better yet, any straight judges from ruling on marriage or family cases.
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