The next complaint anti-gay litigants have
with respect to the Prop. 8 litigation is that presiding District Judge Vaughn Walker, as a gay man in a long-term relationship, should have recused himself from the proceedings (
via). Aside from the strangely apparent concession that Walker does suffer an inequality from the current regime, I find this a little hard to parse. It's just another reprise of the old claims that Black judges shouldn't hear discrimination cases -- and
Judge Higginbotham's opinion on that question remains the alpha and omega for me.
I'm guessing they would insist upon a straight appeals judge or likely get one just based on statistics. But if they win appeal then their own logic would require that appeals judge would have to recuse themselves? Which would mean that the appeals decision wouldn’t have been made, so they wouldn’t have to recuse themselves, but then they would make the decision requiring that they recuse themselves...?
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