Today in what some call an unprecedented hearing in federal court, lawyers on both sides of the gay-rights spectrum presented their arguments on whether a gay marriage ruling by a gay judge in a long-term relationship needs to be thrown out because of a conflict of interest. As this case was before the court, Yahoo! News readers weighed in with opposing views that reflect the central arguments of the latest issue to arise in gay-rights court battles.
Lawyers who support California's same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8, say that because Judge Vaughn Walker is gay and has been in a relationship for about 10 years (facts that were not confirmed until after he retired earlier this year), he could potentially benefit from his own ruling if he intended to get married. But opponents of the ban argue that saying the judge shouldn't have ruled is akin to saying a black judge couldn't rule on a civil rights case or a female judge couldn't rule on a gender discrimination case.
You can read more about today's hearing here.
On Facebook and Twitter, some readers responded with a simple "yes" or "no" when asked if they thought Walker should have been able to rule on the constitutionality of Prop. 8. Others delved more deeply into the issue.
"Tough one b/c of current controversy, but I say yes b/c hetero judges have been able to rule on hetero cases," Cammy Duong (aka @ccduong) wrote on Twitter.
Her reasoning was repeated by many other readers, who responded with things like, "Straight judges judge on straight couples all the time, why not?" (That particular quote comes from Jessimi Gomez on the Facebook discussion that garnered more than 800 comments.) Still others likened it to the civil rights argument, with Justin P tweeting as @xxdesmus: "should women be able to rule on abortion issues then? Hispanic judges on immigration issues? Yes to all them."
Many Yahoo! News readers, however, agreed with the supporters of Prop. 8, calling Walker's status as a gay man in a relationship a conflict of interest. On Twitter, Neil Salt (@salty1980) called it "unfair and unjust."
Ken Tschappat wrote on Facebook: "He should recuse himself. Only honest thing to do and he should know this. Why is there a question?"
In the midst of the Facebook discussion, Norma Jo Bomar Ashburn left a thought that perhaps pierces to the heart of this debate: "All judges are biased to some degree."
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