Day: May 1, 2017

This might just be a great year for irises.  I admit to a particular love of the iris.  It’s low maintenance, unlike the rose.  Individual iris rhizomes are expensive.  Not all make it once planted in the fall.  They just don’t plant right.  But if an iris “takes” you are truly rewarded in the spring

Daffodils are long gone. Violet have pretty much had it.  My one healthy azalea looks pretty good.  The other two are circling the drain.  The Kousa dogwood is getting ready to spring to glory.  A few Jobes’ tree spikes seem to make an old tree young again.

Washingtonpost.com:

Two years after a Kentucky county clerk stirred national attention for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a family court judge in the same state announced he will no longer hear adoption cases involving gay parents, calling his stance on the issue “a matter of conscience.”

Judge W. Mitchell Nance, who sits in Barren and Metcalfe counties in Kentucky, issued an order Thursday saying he believes that allowing a “practicing homosexual” to adopt would “under no circumstance” promote the best interest of the child, he wrote in the order obtained by The Washington Post.

The judge disqualified himself from any adoption cases involving gay couples, citing judicial ethics codes requiring that judges recuse themselves whenever they have a “personal bias or prejudice” concerning a case. Nance’s “conscientious objection” to the concept of gay parents adopting children constitutes such a bias, he argued.

The announcement garnered support from some conservative groups, while also spurring intense criticism from some lawyers and judicial ethics experts who viewed the blanket statement as discriminatory, and a sign that Nance is not fit to fulfill his duties as a judge. Kentucky state law permits gay couples to adopt children, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that all states must allow same-sex marriage.

Judge Nance is free to believe what he wants.  However, he has to do his job according to the laws of both Kentucky and the United States of America.  If he cannot, then he needs to step down.  You can’t cherry-pick the law.   The problem with just recusing himself is that other people have to pick up the slack.

What other biases does he have that might preclude fairness on the bench?  Do his colleagues agree to trade off cases so everyone has the same work load?  Is this a new equal pay for equal work question?

Interesting things to follow regarding this case.