Protect Marriage attorney Charles Cooper (Photo by Karen Ocamb)
UPDATED and CORRECTED: I’ve had Protect Marriage attorney Charles Cooper on the brain today – mostly because I thought House Speaker John Boehner might hire him to defend the Defense of Marriage Act after the law firm contracted to do the job backed out (Paul Clement, the lead attorney on the case, resigned, went to another firm, and still wants to defend DOMA).
Interestingly, Cooper did make news late today, filing a motion in federal court in Perry v Schwarzenegger – now Perry v Brown in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals – to vacate District Court Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional because Walker is in a same sex relationship.
Star AP reporter Lisa Leff reports that the folks at Protect Marriage think that gives them new ground to appeal. Leff wrote that Protect Marriage attorney Andy Pugno told AP that Walker “should have removed himself from the case because his impartiality could ‘reasonably’ be questioned.”
Walker retired in February, though he continues to discuss Prop 8 – including using some of the video from the trial in a lecture. This month confirmed that he is gay and in a 10 year relationship, which he did not consider a reason for recusal.
This afternoon the court sent out an advisory about Cooper’s filing, nothing that a motion hearing has been set for July 11 at 9:00am in San Francisco before Judge James Ware.
UPDATE: American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), which is sponsoring the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Prop 8, just released a statement from AFER Board President Chad Griffin:
“This motion is yet another in a string of desperate and absurd motions by Prop 8 Proponents who refuse to accept the fact that the freedom to marry is a constitutional right. They’re attempting to keep secret the video of the public trial and they’re attacking the judge because they disagree with his decision. Clearly, the Proponents are grasping at straws because they have no legal case.”
UPDATE: Lambda Legal just issued a statement from Legal Director Jon Davidson:
“Proponents of Proposition 8 certainly are getting desperate. This reeks of a hail-Mary attempt to assail Judge Walker’s character because they are unable to rebut the extremely well-reasoned ruling he issued last year. It’s becoming a sadly typical move of the right: don’t like the ruling; attack the referee.”
To say that Judge Walker’s should have disclosed his ten-year relationship with another man or that it made him unfit to rule on Proposition 8 is like saying that a married heterosexual judge deciding an issue in a divorce proceeding has to disclose if he or she is having marital problems and might someday be affected by legal rulings in the case. Or that any judge who professes any religious faith is unable to rule on any question of religious liberty or, at a minimum, must disclose what his faith teaches.
Much like a suggestion that a female judge could not preside over a case involving sexual harassment or an African American judge could not preside over a case involving race discrimination, Proposition 8′s supporters improperly are suggesting that a judge will rule in favor of any litigant with whom he shares a personal characteristic.
Judges hold a special and respected place in our society. Every day, they are called upon to administer justice – in routine contract or traffic court disputes, gut-wrenching child custody decisions, complex criminal proceedings, and, as in this case, disputes about the basic human rights that our Constitution is designed to protect. There may be judges who betray their responsibilities and act with bias, but such a grave accusation must be supported by evidence. Simply disagreeing with a decision is not evidence that it was the result of bias. And assuming that being in a same-sex relationship renders some judges unable to interpret the law and do the job they have sworn to do insults both judges and America’s system of justice.”
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The only desperation I see is in pervert activist’s insistence that their activities be equated to race, religion, or gender; talk about desperate.
There is no constitutional right to perverted marriage
Pervert: An unusual or abnormal sexual act that is habitual.