Bodyman is correct. Would someone say only whites could adjudicate civil rights cases? Only men women's rights? Only Protestants the rights of religious minorities? Would the reverse hold true, for example, could only a GLBT judge adjudicate a divorce and custody battle of a heterosexual couple?
Have any of those beating their manly breasts over the Prop 8 ruling followed the trial? Read the questions the judge put to both sides at the end of trial? Are aware of the issues of fact and law raised in the case? Read Judge Walker's opinion? Yes? No? I'm willing to bet in a lot of cases, including the originator of the thread, the answers are resounding no.
Read the Constitution. Judges don't just exist for criminal cases but precisely to rule on Constitutionality. Including of popular measures. For example,
Loving v. Virginia was decided in 1967. It took nearly 25 years before a majority of Americans agreed with that decision.
BTW, do those beating their manly breasts know how loathed Judge Walker was in the GLBT community? That some in our community were dismayed that he was the judge in the case and thought Olsen and Boies should have challenged him? That in fact both sides agreed to accept Judge Walker?
Have any of those beating their manly breasts ever read Boies' and Olsen's companion articles, respectively,
The Liberal Case for Gay Marriage and
The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage, in which they explain how they came from very different places to the same conclusion, but for diferent reasons?
Hilariously, the supporters of Prop 8 are arguing for a stay on the grounds that if gay and lesbian couples were allowed to start marrying again and Judge Walker's decision was later overturned on appeal, this would cause trauma to these same sex couples. Talk about gall, when they sought in court to have 18,000 marriages overturned. They are also saying that the GLBT community was led astray by two lawyers with big egos. Because these poor dumb queers are incapable of knowing what's good for us. (Almost identical to what opponents of women's rights say about women seeking birth control and abortion, led astray by evil Planned Parenthood, poor little girls don't know what they are doing.)
Lest I sound mad, I'm not. Maybe by tomorrow. Or this afternoon. As I sit in my Pride T-shirt and rainbow earrings, the rainbow flags in my home and cubicle are flying a little higher and prouder today. Or as the really really corny song says:
Going to the chapel and we're going to get married
Going to the chapel and we're going to get married
Sign carried by a woman at last night's celebration in SF: "Lesbians Love Boies".
