| — Dear editor:

Contrary to Cal Thomas' recent column, Judge Vaughn Walker is not an "openly gay man."

A California newspaper printed this assertion during the course of the Prop 8 trial and proponents of that issue have declared it a matter of record ever since. Only the supposition, a hypothetical, drawn from the fact that the Judge is a bachelor is a matter of record. An irresponsible newspaper simply succumbed to a "tabloid moment" and decided that the status of being a bachelor was synonymous with being gay.

Openly gay men are proud of the fact and make a point of it -- publicly. Judge Walker has taken no such public stand, and there is nothing in his background or history to suggest that he needs to or should.

On the day Judge Walker issued his ruling, Fox News carried an article by a law professor from Notre Dame who posited through conjecture that Judge Vaughn Walker's rumored homosexuality caused him to decide the trial before hearing it.

 Thomas echoed these rumors without bothering to cite a source and, given the echo chamber in which he works, why would he? Rumor is what Thomas occupies himself with; not facts that might lend credibility to his assumptions, or reliable sources in support of his highly-partisan position. It is an irony then that Thomas quoted former Attorney General Edwin Meese as having told him: "There was absolutely no knowledge, rumor or suspicion" of Vaughn Walker being a homosexual at the time of his nomination by Ronald Reagan.

And the fact of the matter is that no subsequent "knowledge, rumor or suspicion" has arisen that this honorable gentleman of the judiciary is a homosexual - until the Prop 8 case was brought before him.

Conservative Fox News columnist (and great grand-daughter of President Herbert Hoover), Margaret Hoover offered this observation: "Now, with a decision handed down that social conservatives despise, a judge whose sterling reputation as a conservative for twenty years on the federal bench is under attack.

"We conservatives have a well-founded narrative about judges and the courts. It is true that the federal bench is populated with liberals who view their role not as interpreting the law as it is written, but as policy makers empowered to sculpt social outcomes with which they agree.”

The irony of this case is that Judge Walker is not a liberal activist judge but one whose career has proven him to be a tempered judge, true to the Reagan-Bush conservative jurisprudence that he was nominated to represent on the bench.

Less than a week after Walker issued his ruling, the 132-year old American Bar Association announced its support of it. In a resolution, the group acknowledges that same-sex couples "are only seeking to participate on an equal basis in a foundational institution of our civil life." Former ABA president Tommy Wells told the ABA's House of Delegates, "They simply want to share in the legal blessings that we give to married couples. It can only strengthen marriage."

The ABA may be the most influential legal group in the world. It is not a hot-bed of liberal activism, or the ACLU. The position it has taken in the matter is a clear indication of its expectation for the outcome of the appeal process now underway.

Clearly, even if the appeal process goes all the way to the Supreme Court, the ABA expects the Walker Ruling to be sustained. That will render null any local legal barriers to the so-called "marriage equality" initiative making it a new fact of life in the US.

Cal Thomas is not an illiterate man. He can read, and he can write. He should have done more of the former by perusing the trial transcript and text of Walker's Ruling before formulating his own judgment in the matter and bringing it rumor-laden and half-baked to the court of public opinion via his column. His revelation now stands in glaring contrast to the facts of the matter.

Cal Thomas is a professional opinion maker. I'm a fan, and his worst nightmare. He doesn't make my opinion - because I know how he makes up his.

Wayne Bloodworth

Moultrie