California Judges and The Boy Scouts (cont.)

By a somewhat surprising unanimous vote, the California State Supreme Court has revised the state's Code of Judicial Ethics to where state court judges will now have to seriously think twice about being associated with "anti-gay" groups like the Boy Scouts.

Because the Scouting group bans gays, judges must disclose membership when it has "the potential to give an appearance of partiality," the court said in amending the state's Code of Judicial Ethics. The court added language to the ethics code suggesting that judges disqualify themselves from cases where membership in an anti-gay group could be viewed as a conflict.

I've read the language of the amendments, and I suppose it is somewhat of a comfort that the Court decided not to go full board and outright prohibit state judges from having an association with groups like the Boy Scouts (that would be unconstitutional). Nevertheless, there are some problems with the amendments that ultimately may have to be resolved through the litigation process. From a work standpoint, I would invite this, but from a taxpayer perspective, this is just another example of why liberals should never be given power to appoint judges.