Friday, August 6, 2010

Bias

Prop 8 was overturned a couple days ago. Since then, people on both sides have been commenting on the decision, unsurprisingly. One of the oddest arguments I've heard from those opposing the decision was that the judge is gay. People are accusing him of bias, but I don't really see how that could work, since, presumably, a straight judge would be biased as well, just the other way. That's like saying a pro-choice judge is more biased than a pro-life judge in an abortion case. The whole point of judging is that, whatever your biases, you put them aside. There is no such thing as a purely objective opinion, unless you have robot judges (AWESOME!), and even then, you could argue that the programmers could have introduced bias in the way they coded.

Listen, it's fine if you don't like the decision. But don't tell me it's invalid because the judge was biased on account of his sexual orientation.

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