Dahlia Lithwick had a definitive piece earlier this week on the remarkably silly and offensive argument that Judge Vaughn Walker was bound to recuse himself from hearing a case on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage because he was involved in same-sex relationship. Rights claims seem to be especially likely to bring out reactionary assumptions that only affluent straight Christian white men can be truly impartial, while everyone else is a "special interest." As Lithwick points out, these transparently illogical assumptions have an extensive history:
Still, just because a legal argument is degrading and futile doesn't mean nobody will make it. For as long as there have been bigots in America, litigants have tried to argue that women are too womanly to decide gender cases and that Jews are too Jewish to hear cases involving the first attacks on the World Trade Center. Like ProtectMarriage, these litigants also have tried to dress up their claims as something other than pure bigotry. They never prevail.
Fortunately, the motion filed against Walker was rejected by the District Court yesterday. It will fare no better at other levels, but it does reveal a great deal about opponents of same-sex marriage and why they're doomed to fail.
