Free Republic

To hear them describe it, defenders of traditional marriage during last year’s trial on California’s Proposition 8 felt like the visiting team in a game with a hometown referee. It was an open secret that District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker was gay, although he had never publicly acknowledged it. Under the circumstances, challenging his objectivity in a case on the constitutionality of “one man, one woman” marriage carried substantial risks, such as angering the judge or being accused of “outing” a public figure, without any promise of success. The circumstances changed when Judge Walker, now retired, was quoted in...

Dismantling the Courts VIDEO 7:16 min. Today on Uncommon Knowledge, Thomas Sowell, author of Dismantling America, on the continuing outrage of judges who read their own ideological values into the Constitution.  Case in point?  Yes indeed.  Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision to declare Proposition 8 unconstitutional—even though it ratifies the concept of marriage as universally understood at the time the Constitution was drafted and ratified, and even though it received the votes of seven million Californians.  The most important decision is always who makes the decision.  The question of the role of gender is not for this judge to decide – since...

Last week, when Judge Walker's decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger came out, I felt a dreadful fear. My fear was not about what gay marriage would do to the institution of traditional marriage. I reckon that marriage is not as fragile as conservatives fear, although one should never underestimate the damage that a liberal wrecking crew can do. Marriage is more than a "cultural construct." To use a liberal argument, the science is in on marriage. It is a profoundly Darwinian, evolutionary adaptation that will long survive the fashionable twists and turns in liberal jurisprudence. No, I fear what this...

(CNSNews.com) - U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who ruled last week that a voter-approved amendment to California’s constitution that limited marriage to the union of one man and one woman violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, based that ruling in part on his finding that a child does not need and has no right to a mother. Nor, he found, does a child have a need or a right to a father. “Children do not need to be raised by a male parent and a female parent to be well-adjusted, and having both a male and a female parent does not increase the...

It's safe to assume that Judge Vaughn Walker voted against Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in California back in 2008. Throughout the trial on the measure in his courtroom, he proved himself as zealously in favor of gay marriage -- if not more so -- than the plaintiffs petitioning to have it declared unconstitutional. If he voted "no" a couple of years ago, Judge Walker wasn't alone. More than 6.4 million Californians voted against Proposition 8. At 48 percent, that was almost enough to constitute a majority. But Judge Walker presumably got two bites at the apple: First in the...

Here’s a quick overview of Judge Walker’s conclusions of law (from pages 109 to 135 of his wild opinion), with some interspersed commentary in brackets: 1. Proposition 8 violates the Due Process Clause by unconstitutionally burdening the exercise of the fundamental right to marry. “Marriage has retained certain characteristics throughout the history of the United States”: “two parties … give their free consent to form a relationship, which then forms the foundation of a household.” [Ah, yes, “parties.” “I now pronounce you party and party”—that sure captures what marriage has traditionally been.] “The spouses must consent to support each other...

SAN FRANCISCO -- As the trial over California's prohibition on same-sex marriage enters its final stage Wednesday, the ban's sponsors are urging the judge to go a step further and revoke state recognition of the marriages of 18,000 gay and lesbian couples who wed before voters passed Proposition 8. Such an order would honor "the expressed will of the people," backers of the November 2008 ballot measure said Tuesday in their final written filing before Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker.Andrew Pugno, an attorney for Prop. 8's backers, said in an interview that the sponsors aren't asking Walker to nullify...

In a story last Sunday the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Proposition 8 judge Vaughn Walker is gay and called his orientation, "The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage." We have no idea whether the report is true or not. But we do know one really big important fact about Judge Walker: He's been an amazingly biased and one-sided force throughout this trial, far more akin to an activist than a neutral referee. That's no secret at all. Protect Marriage, the defendants in this case, are effectively being held hostage by Judge Walker and cannot really...

The federal trial on the constitutionality of California's gay marriage prohibition, which voters passed in 2008, has been more a sociological and philosophical debate than a traditional evidentiary hearing. The testimony and the opposing lawyers' arguments so far boil down to this: Some folks believe that same-sex couples should have the constitutional right to marry, and other folks deny there is such a right. The debate is more philosophical than legal because this is virgin territory for the federal courts, no pun intended. Ultimately, it boils down to the personal views of the judges who will pass judgment as the...