If you can't win a case based on the merits of the law, then the next logical step is to publicly discredit those we trust to uphold it, right? That seems to be the Rovian strategy coming from Fox News - who preemptively published a bash piece by Gerard Bradley about U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker - alleging that his ruling was possibly biased because he is openly gay.
I'm sure that most people would question the merits of the accusation from the writer who can't even proofread how to spell Vaughn (he repeatedly spells it Vaughan - even in his rebuttal of his critics). Judge Walker has taken an oath to uphold the law fairly - and has been bound by that oath since he assumed office in 1989. Gerard Bradley, however, makes no bones about his own bias. He's widely known as a religious scholar, published widely in conservative publications for openly biased views on social policy.
This piece, published in the conservative National Review, contends that when the founding fathers wrote "liberty" into the Bill of Rights, they didn't mean individual liberty, of course. They meant that we should have the liberty to self-govern, implying that we should just have the collective liberty to create whatever laws we see fit, regardless of effect on individual liberties. You can imagine the implications of this type of legal interpretation of the Bill of Rights.
Some quotes from this piece of his (emphasis mine):
In the 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey, they helped to form a majority that affirmed the abortion license of Roe v. Wade. And they did so (in part) by finding that license within what they called "the heart of liberty": that is, "the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."
When America's Founders thought of liberty, however, their minds did not gravitate to a bill of rights, much less to the Supreme Court as guardian of the lonely dissenter. One reason is that the Founders understood liberty to be mainly a community's right to govern itself according to laws made by representatives caring for the public weal.Individual lives go better when people affirm, for example, the moral truth about human dignity and basic norms of morality such as the Golden Rule.
In other words, the will of the majority can overtake the rights of the minority.
I'm sure that's an easier position to take when you're part of the majority. But I digress.
I don't care if a judge is gay when ruling about marriage equality more than I care if the judge is married or a Christian. In fact, I'll use Gerard Bradley's own words to describe why I don't care about the judges personal life:
All judges have beliefs and personal habits which intersect from time to time with the matters in dispute before them. We do not require judges to be blank slates without a personal life. Judges are not automatons.
All we ask and what we rightly expect is that judges put aside those things insofar as they might interfere with deciding a case fairly and in accord with the law.
In this case, the judge ruled that based on existing law (The Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause, if you want to get technical) that it was unconstitutional to ban gay marriage.
If you want to argue law and morality and hell and damnation for all homosexuals, I'm game. If you want to argue why it is constitutional to ban gay marriage, fine. But when you lose that argument based on the law, the dignified thing to do is to respect the constitution and Bill of Rights as our founding fathers wrote them, not as you wish they were written or could be interpreted.
It's a despicable tactic being used by those who have no legal or logical basis to deny equal rights to their fellow Americans. All involved in this "strategy" and publication should be ashamed of themselves.
The judge being gay doesn't change what the constitution says, Mr. Bradley.
I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the judge, when giving his ruling, also supplied his findings of fact and conclusions of law. His findings of fact are almost impossible to overcome because he is the fact finder. He is present when testimony is given and he is given great latitude in giving credibility to a witness's testimony. IOW, the same exact words spoken, can have a completely and totally different meaning when written down, and appeals are written, not spoken. Also, words alone do not convey the witness's demeanor, expertise, etc. either.
In order for an appeal to be perfected, one must prove that the judge's ruling was so outside the law or outside reason as to be a miscarriage of justice. You can't appeal just because you don't like the decision -- you must have a basis in law, an "issue" for that appeal. And it can't be one of those mistakes that ends up in a no harm no foul situation either (you know - where the judge did make a mistake, but it doesn't have any affect on the outcome).
From my understanding of Judge Vaughn's ruling - his findings of the facts were written to pretty much exclude any real basis for an appeal on the facts. That leaves his conclusions of law based on those facts. Another pretty difficult hurdle.
The whining I've heard so far is that the judge conducted an "unfair" trial - that the process was tainted. And, of course, the "he should've recused himself because he is openly gay" bigotry. Looks like they are throwing out stuff to see what their base will take up as the rallying cry. So far, it's slim pickin's.
Remember, just because it is appealed does not mean that the judge's ruling will be overturned. The appeals court must make their decision based in the law -- unless they are the SCOTUS of 2000, that is.
Yep, if you can't beat the message, beat the messenger. If you can't win on the merits, use personal attacks and slander. Typical Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, et al operindus modi.
What I find interesting is that these changes would/could likely only occur under liberal government despite flying in the face of all the closet pedophile opposition.
Years ago I read a complex thesis regarding crime and punishment within the context of political philosophy and what struck me the most was the perspective that crime and punishment, even right and wrong have no substantive context outside of the philosophical realm. For an extreme example let's say that a pedophile would not be a pedophile unless society dictated so.
Illicit drug trafficking and use is a huge thorn in the side of gentile society even though many users and likely traffickers ostensibly function as mainstream productive citizens. We are all familiar with the pro and con arguments used within the context of 'conventional wisdom' when discussing legalization of drugs but some outside the box thinkers have very different ideas.
Some have argued that the reality within the reality involves on the surface a desire by some to create chaos by playing all sides against the middle and there is a vast amount of information to lend credence to that view. But it is held that at a deeper level lies the fear by those that orchestrate the game that if in fact psychotropic drug use were legal and consequently widespread that it would allow the sheeple to see beyond the reality that has been created for their benefit and subsequent subjugation. Who knows!
"A recent book called The Invisible Gorilla uses research on how the mind works to challenge our ideas about attention, perception and reasoning. The book's main idea is that we think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we're actually missing a whole lot. "Again and again," the authors write, "we think we experience and understand the world as it is, but our thoughts are beset by everyday illusions."
- National Center For Fathering -
The conservatives have also conveniently forgotten that Judge Walker was originally nominated to the bench by Ronald Reagan and eventually nominated and confirmed as District Judge during the reign of George HW Bush (Bush the Elder).
Freeportguy, that was my thought as well. Based upon what we've learned lately about some of these rabid ant-gay guys, it makes me wonder if perhaps they have rentboys hidden in their lives.
Judge Walker's ruling was a masterpiece; very detailed and easy to understand. Prop 8 proponents certainly came up with two sorry witnesses. Facts weren't on their side.
thanks for writing that Faux had published this even BEFORE the ruling came down, kel.
since the judge had 80+ 'fact findings' in his meticulous ruling, appeals court judges or the SCOTUS will have their work cut out for them; unless they just default to 'activist' and re-write law from the bench.
"alleging that his ruling was possibly biased because he is openly gay"
Based on that principle, wouldn't a ruling reaffirming the ban on gay wedding by an openly heterosexual judge have been equally biased??