headline from the LAist: “gay marriage foes want to impeach judge who overturned prop 8.”

“since marriage policy is not established anywhere in the federal constitution, defining marriage, according to the 10th amendment, is an issue reserved for the states. judge walker never should have accepted this case in the first place,” tim wildmon, president of the AFA, wrote in an e-mail to members today. “in addition, judge walker is an open homosexual, and should have recused himself from this case due to his obvious conflict of interest.”

ooh, this gets my goat. this gets my goat really good.

because

1. these are concerns you could have easily raised at the start of the trial — and didn’t. only now, after the verdict didn’t go your way, do you say that he never should’ve taken the case in the first place.

2. you’re arguing that no judge should’ve been allowed to take this case, in which case you’re unfairly targeting judge walker.

3. the comment about judge walker’s sexual orientation being “a conflict of interest” implies that a heterosexual judge would have a neutral, objective perspective and thus be able to deliver a neutral, objective verdict. the assumption that anyone holds such a stance is erroneous and is a lingering example of hegemony in our society.

i’ve written about other variants of this idea in the past, and it gets me every time.