Scalia Too Biased to Judge Marriage Cases
George Takei is kind of a hero of mine. Yes, I’m a total Star Trek geek. But’s it not because of his role as Hikaru Sulu. It’s because of his tireless LGBT activism and, most recently, his call for Justice Scalia to recuse himself from the DOMA and Prop 8 cases the Supreme Court recently decided to take.
Recusal is when a judge removes herself or himself from hearing a case because of an actual or perceived conflict of interest. So why should Scalia recuse himself? The answer lies in the fact that recusal isn’t just about conflict of interest, financial or otherwise. It’s more about Scalia’s impartiality and bias. In fact, those very words are in the law regarding the Judiciary and recusal, Title 28 of the US Code:
§ 455. Disqualification of justice, judge, or magistrate judge
(a) Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.
(b) He shall also disqualify himself in the following circumstances:
(1) Where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party…
Recently a Princeton student posed a great question to Scalia, asking if he regretted some harsh language he employed in LGBT rights cases. Not only did he not regret the language he used, he answered with a totally repugnant (Takei’s spot-on characterization) equating of homosexuality with…wait for it…murder:
http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2012/12/27/scalia-too-biased-judge-upcoming-marriage-cases
= new reply since forum marked as read
