Quote of the Day

"Under the logic of the people challenging the judge's fitness to rule on a case involving gay rights because he or she was gay, one would have to find a eunuch to serve on the case, because one could just as easily argue that a heterosexual judge couldn't rule on it either." -- William G. Ross, an expert on judicial ethics and law professor at Samford University in Alabama.

Here's the thing that I find curious about the argument being made by social conservatives that the judge's sexual orientation is a de facto disqualifying characteristic in his ability to be a fair and impartial judge in a case like the Prop 8 one. It is usually these very same conservatives who often trumpet the principle of judging a person's worth in his profession on the merits of his performance as opposed to a personally defining characteristic such as race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. Conservatives who argue that the judge's sexual orientation, whatever it may be, in and of itself, is reason enough to challenge his competency to judge over this case, and yet fail to make any mention of the quality of the judge's decisions in any of the previous cases he has heard, are not only being hypocritical but are also resorting to the ugly practice of playing the "gay" card in the game of identity politics much the same way that they often lament and criticize certain liberals for playing the "race" card.