When Justice John Paul Stevens dissented in Bush v. Gore, the case that installed George W. Bush in the White House, his objection focused on the integrity of the judicial system, which he declared had been sorely abused by the Supreme Court majority. Likewise, Stevens' dissent  earlier this year in Citizens United v. FEC, which is opening the flood gates of corporate money in elections, lamented the fact that the activist ruling by Court conservatives would erode respect for judges and the rule of law.
      Federal District Judge Vaughn Walker, like Stevens an Illinois native, on Wednesday, Aug. 4, took a giant step toward restoring public awareness of and respect for the third branch of government. His decision finding that California's Proposition 8, which sought to outlaw gay marriage, is unconstitutional is an overdue, landmark restoration of constitutional law that breathes new life into the just powers of the federal judiciary established by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1803 (Marbury v. Madison).
      Walker's 138-page decision is not a statement of his personal beliefs or an activist assertion about the evolution of American culture and the rightness of gay marriage in contemporary society, as some right-wing commentators have suggested. No, the decision is conservative in the true sense of the word. It is based on evidence (or lack thereof) presented by the parties in the lawsuit and on the plain language of the 14th Amendment. The amendment, ratified in 1868, reads in part:, "No State ... shall .. deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It will be fun to see how the "originalists" and "strict constructionists" among right-wingers respond to Judge Walker's citation of the words of the Constitution.
     The wheels of justice grind slowly. It took nearly 100 years for America to apply the simple statement of the 14th Amendment to African Americans. It's taken much longer to bring gays and lesbians into the tent of American democracy. The notion that voters in California could repeal the 14th Amendment should have been considered absurd when it was proposed. But it's not, because American's don't grasp the importance of the Constitution and the judicial branch of government created by the founding fathers.
     We need to abandon the fiction that the federal judicial system, with lifetime appointments of judges, can be understood though the same liberal/conservative lens as the political system. Judge Walker is just the latest example that puts the lie to the way the media frames stories about judges and the courts.
      Walker initially was nominated to the federal bench by President Ronald Regan as part of his successful effort to stock the federal courts with economic conservatives. Democrats blocked Walker, ironically on a charge that he was anti-gay. (Walker is gay.) But he was confirmed for the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of California after being nominated by President George H. W. Bush.
     Justice Stevens, who retired earlier this year, also was the nominee of a conservative Republican president, Gerald R. Ford. Walker now joins Stevens and a few other prominent federal judges, many of them conservatives, as protectors of the constitutional system of law and the proper role of the courts.