This January, Vaughan Walker, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, began hearing arguments for Perry v. Schwarzenegger, a federal constitutional challenge to California’s Prop 8. As avid readers of this blog and mass media consumers, I’m sure you’re familiar, as this historic trial certainly isn’t lacking in publicity.
Last week, The San Francisco Chronicle publicly outed Walker, calling his sexual orientation “the biggest open secret” in the trial. According to the article, Walker has never made an effort to hide or widely broadcast his sexuality; yet because of the high-profile nature of the case and the controversy surrounding same-sex marriage, his sexual orientation is now an issue. Executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, Brian Brown, has come out swinging, attacking Walker for being biased, explaining that Walker has taken a thoroughly prejudiced stance throughout the trial. Regardless of your personal feelings about same-sex marriage, Walker’s role in this trial is to fairly and impartially rule, based on evidence and testimony, on whether or not Prop. 8 is unconstitutional.
Although Brown has not said that that Walker’s sexual orientation is directly affecting his judicial responsibilities, it begs the question: Does Walker’s sexuality have any bearing on his ability to fairly preside over this case? What I find most interesting, is that if Walker has in fact been biased during the entire trial, why are we just hearing about said prejudice now that we know he’s gay? Interesting coincidence.
If Judge Walker was a straight man, would we assume that he’d be biased in favor of supporting Prop. 8? He didn’t seek out the case; it was assigned to him randomly. He hasn’t publicly commented on the above issue, and pushing this a bit farther, does his alleged bias in this incredibly public trial cast aspersions as to his credibility and decisions ruled in other cases? Ironically, when Walker was a private attorney, he successfully represented the U.S. Olympic Committee in its efforts to prevent the San Francisco Gay Olympics from infringing on its name and his judicial nomination was delayed because of his representation.
As a vocal LGBT ally and communicator, this is just another unfortunate example of tying sexuality to prejudice, and assuming that one’s sexual orientation inherently controls and dictates actions and beliefs. Leave me a comment below, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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