Judge Vaughn Walker Announces Retirement

Ninth District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, who ruled that California's Proposition 8 violated the Equal Protection clause of 14th amendment over the summer, has announced that he will retire effective at the end of December this year.

Walker said in a letter to President Obama, “Concluding twenty-one years of judicial service, I leave the bench with the highest respect and regard for the federal judiciary, its judges and their staff and the essential role they fulfill in our constitutional system."

Walker was appointed to the federal bench in 1990 by then-president George H.W. Bush who hailed his conservative values. The right-wing, anti-gay, enemies of freedom (a/k/a Republicans) now call Walker a biased, activist judge for his ruling, which read, in part, "Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license".

It reminds me of those heartfelt words of my mother, who once told me many years ago when I was winning an argument, "Don't get rational with me!"

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Key findings and full text of Judge Walker's Prop 8 ruling

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Ever since the closing arguments in Perry vs. Schwarzenegger took place two months ago, the LGBT community has been wondering why it was taking so long for Judge Walker to rule on the case. The short answer is that there was a lot of evidence and testimony to review, even though none of what the pro-8 side presented had any legal merit.

Having read through the e transcript of Judge Walker's opinion, I'm glad he took his time deliberating this case. It's going to be very difficult for his judgement to be overturned on appeal. That doesn't mean the haters won't try. The other side has already filed a motion to delay implementation of the ruling, which Judge Walker is currently considering.

The 138-page ruling has gone viral since it was released Wednesday. (See the full text below). Here are some of Judge Walker's key findings as posted in the Los Angeles Times:

• "Plaintiffs have demonstrated by overwhelming evidence that Proposition 8 violates their due process and equal protection rights and that they will continue to suffer these constitutional violations until state officials cease enforcement of Proposition 8. California is able to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, as it has already issued 18,000 marriage licenses to same sex couples and has not suffered any demonstrated harm as a result ...

• "Because Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the court orders entry of judgment permanently ... prohibiting the official defendants [state of California] from applying or enforcing Proposition 8..."

• "Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional."

Prop 8 Ruling FINAL

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Breaking: Prop 8 Ruled Unconstitutional! (Video)

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

(CNN) -- A federal judge in California has knocked down the state's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, ruling Wednesday that the state's controversial Proposition 8 violates the U.S. Constitution.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker found in his ruling that the ban violated the Constitution's equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment.

The closely watched case came some two years after Californians voted to pass Proposition 8, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Neither opponents nor supporters of same-sex marriage said before the ruling that it would likely be the last. Both sides said the decision will be appealed and eventually wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling says, in part, "Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians.The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples."


"Race restrictions on marital partners were once common in most states but are now seen as archaic, shameful or even bizarre. When the Supreme Court invalidated race restrictions in Loving, the definition of the right to marry did not change. Instead, the Court recognized that race restrictions, despite their historical prevalence, stood in stark contrast to the concepts of liberty and choice inherent in the right to marry."

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger released this statement: “Today's decision is by no means California's first milestone, nor our last, on America's road to equality and freedom for all people.”

California Attorney General Jerry Brown says via FaceBook: "A great day for all Californians. Justice Walker shares my belief that Prop 8 is unconstitutional."

Not so fast guys and gals! Don't go shopping for that perfect Vera Wang gown just yet. The Prop 8 proponents have been granted a stay that was filed last night when it became clear their side would lose. The ruling will not go into effect until possibly as late as October, so they can prepare an appeal. The reasoning is that they could be another window where gay and lesbian couples could get married only to have to marriages ruled invalid if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds Prop 8.

Stay tuned, folks. This ain't over by a longshot.

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Supreme Court: Christian Student Group Must Admit Gays, Cuccinelli Disagrees

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that a christian student group receiving funding from a university cannot violate that university's non-discrimination policy and must allow gay students to join. The court ruled that Hastings College's policy does extend to student groups and does not violate the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Huffington Post reports:

WASHINGTON — An ideologically split Supreme Court ruled Monday that a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won't let gays join, with one justice saying that the First Amendment does not require a public university to validate or support the group's "discriminatory practices."

The court turned away an appeal from the Christian Legal Society, which sued to get funding and recognition from the University of California's Hastings College of the Law. The CLS requires that voting members sign a statement of faith and regards "unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle" as being inconsistent with that faith.

The court on a 5-4 judgment upheld the lower court rulings saying the Christian group's First Amendment rights of association, free speech and free exercise were not violated by the college's nondiscrimination policy.

"In requiring CLS – in common with all other student organizations – to choose between welcoming all students and forgoing the benefits of official recognition, we hold, Hastings did not transgress constitutional limitations," said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the 5-4 majority opinion for the court's liberals and moderate Anthony Kennedy. "CLS, it bears emphasis, seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings' policy."

Naturally, Virginia's douchebag of an attorney general has weighed on the subject, saying that the 14th amendment does not protect the gays.

Last March Cooch sent a letter to Virginia's state colleges and universities stating that employment non-discrimination policies that included sexual orientation as a protected status where not legal in the commonwealth and must be stricken. The move caused a major uproar on campuses throughout the Old Dominion, with students and faculty tatking to the streets of Richmond in protest.

Not being one to miss an opportunity to show his ass, Cooch also believes he knows the constitution better that the Supreme Court and said so to a group of high school students. Think Progress' The Wonk Room reports:

On Friday, Cuccinelli appeared at Boys State, where a high-school student asked him, “How is that not a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment?” Cuccinelli responded by suggesting that the amendment was not designed to protect gay people:

 “State universities are not free to create any specially protected classes other than those dictated by the General Assembly,” Cuccinelli said. “Your question is, why is that not a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Frankly, the category of sexual orientation would never have been contemplated by the people who wrote and voted for and passed the 14th Amendment,” he said.

“There are judges who think these things ‘evolve,’ is the word they like to use,” Cuccinelli said, but the correct approach to making such a change would be a constitutional amendment, he said.

 I really wish Cooch and Gov. McDonnell would share notes on these issues. Earlier this year when McDonnell came under fire for breaking with his predecessors and leaving out sexual orientation as executive order on non-discrimination, "Taliban Bob" said it was unnecessary because the 14th Amendment provided all the protection we need.

This is why we need ENDA!

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Cooch talks about Gay Rights, Health Care at Liberty University (video)

Roanoke's Jay Warren of Newschannel10 caught up with Virginia's attorney general Ken Cuccinelli at Liberty University in Lynchburg on Tuesday where the arch-conservative joked, "I’ve been in two-and-a-half months, and it’s been pretty boring." Pardon me if I fail to see the humor.

Warren grilled Cuccinelli about his notorious letter to Virginia's colleges and universities, known as "the campus letter". The A.G. told Warren, “They (colleges) went beyond their state law authority. Everyone has the potential for protection under the Equal Protection Clause of the federal Constitution, but that’s not a specially protected class.“

In other words, LGBT Virginians have "the potential" for full protection of federal law, but no "actual" protection under state law.

Warren followed up by asking, “So if they were fired if they were gay, could you defend that? Defend the university for the firing?“ Cuccinelli responded, “Arguments could made on either side of that. We could defend the university, it would be uncomfortable.“

Warren asked if being gay was a fireable offense to which the top lawyer in the commonwealth answered, "No."

Warren also asked Cuccinelli about his participation in the federal lawsuit challenging the recently passed Health Care Reform Bill. Critics have complained about the cost of fighting this battle with Virginia's economy still deep in the red. Cuccinelli insists that the expense will be minimal and no staff will be pulled from their regular assignments. He says the entire expense will be the $350 fee required to file the suit.

See the full interview below.

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Bishop John Shelby Spong -- A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!

After this week's Equality Across the Commonwealth demonstration, I was asked in an interview by Stonewall Society founder, Len Rogers what I thought the greatest obstacle to the GLBT community achieving  equality is. My response was:

"We need to forget about the Religious objections. Get it off the table and don't try to argue the point any more. There is nothing we can say or do to convince conservative Christians that the bible is wrong. It's what their whole belief system is based on. There are plenty of churches that accept us just as we are, we don't need the rest of them. We've been spinning our wheels for 40 years by engaging in arguments we can't win.This is a civil rights movement and needs to be presented that way. It's about justice and fairness and equal protection under the law."

(Len is still working on the article. He contributes stories to several blogs and as soon as it it posted, I'll post the link.)

Today I saw the following article posted on FaceBook and wanted to share it here. It says, so much more eloquently, what I was trying to express. It's been making its way around the web for the last few days. It's a bit long, but I encourage you to read it through.

Bishop John Shelby Spong -- A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate "reparative therapy," as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality "deviant."


I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement.

I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves.

I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to "Roll on over or we'll roll on over you!" Time waits for no one.

I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.

In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by "fair-minded" channels that seek to give "both sides" of this issue "equal time." I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.

I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude.

I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population.

I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.

I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be.

• Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us.

• Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church.

• "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces.

We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women?

The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a "mobocracy," which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.

I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.

The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture's various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.

I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union.

I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church's participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.

Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.

This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.

- John Shelby Spong