Fallout and idle minds

Rachel Maddow offers some thoughts on the Prop 8 ruling and one of the cherished canards of the right:

So where is the ruling weak? If you support marriage equality and this ruling, what do you need to guard against now, as the case makes its way up the appeals ladder? The first big criticism is that it denies citizens the right to vote on the issue. A second, ad hominem argument is that Walker should have recused himself because he's gay.

Between them, the two arguments don't amount to much. The second smacks of prejudice, and goes to prove the point that anti-gay discrimination is real. The first is circular, since the whole idea of the ruling is that the majority doesn't get to vote away the rights of a minority -- "We want to vote." "You don't get to vote on this." "But we want to vote!"

The biggest weakness seems to be that the U.S. Supreme Court does what it wants to do, factual record or no.

It's one of the cherished canards of the right that a gay judge or legislator has signed a secret pact with the gay version of the Vatican (wait, wait, bad example) . S/he will always vote gay, just as anti-Catholics whispered that if John F. Kennedy became US president, he'd be getting his chain yanked by the Pope in Rome 'coz Kennedy was a Catholic.

When a Charlotte NC superior court judge came out in the 1990s, the Baptists all claqued and demanded he recuse himself from damn near everything.

On the other hand, the only openly gay member of the Oregon Supreme Court at the time voted against same-sex marriage. He couldn't see it in Oregon's constitution.

The right seems to think it's a lock that a gay judge will vote gay, which is, by definition, an outrage. They deny that Supreme Court Justices like Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito will reflexively vote for repealing abortion rights, which is doing God's will.

Mostly this sort of story is dumb because nobody's sexuality is anyone's bidness unless the individual makes it so. Judge Walker of the Prop 8 case has never said boo about where his affections lie. The most anyone can say is "it's rumored" or "it's common knowledge."

I've known lots of judges in lots of places who'd fit that vagary. But till they come out, or, the Enquirer gets the hot tub snaps, it's just gossip.If conservatives think gay judges and legislators are an issue, then crawl out from under the rock and litmus test it. Otherwise, given the astonishing number of closeted gays the GOP has put up with as long as they did the right wrong thing, STFU.