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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