Vaughn Walker’s successor as chief judge of the Northern District of California, Judge James Ware, will decide Prop 8 proponents’ motion to vacate Walker’s anti-Prop 8 ruling on the ground of Walker’s improper failure to recuse himself from the case.

According to a provocative post published by RENWL—a coalition of supporters of same-sex marriage from a Los Angeles neighborhood—lots of white gays are very concerned that Chief Judge Ware is African-American.

As the RENWL blogger puts it, the same “passive aggressive white gay racism” that “had angry white gay folks hollering ‘N*****’ at fellow black protesters in front of the Mormon Temple in Westwood [in] early November 2008 after inflated numbers pointed towards an overwhelming support of Prop 8 by California black voters” now has some white gays engaged in “race-based attack[s]” on Ware. And:

If Ware so much as sneezes that he may not like any aspect of the pro-Judge Walker argument, we know immediately afterwards we are sure to see lovely phrases like “effing N******” fill up the blog post commentaries [run by various white gay bloggers.] [Emphasis in original; I’ve edited the N-word in this passage and the one previous one.]

This is rich: On the one hand, many opponents of Prop 8 maintain (at least publicly) that no reasonable person could question Walker’s impartiality, notwithstanding the fact that we now know that he was ruling on whether he would have a legal right to marry his previously undisclosed long-term same-sex partner. On the other hand, according to the RENWL post, many of these same folks indulge their own irrational suspicions that Ware, because he is African-American, will be biased against them—or perhaps just that he won’t be biased in their favor, as Walker manifestly was.

I am not familiar with Chief Judge Ware. I simply hope that he has the clarity and courage needed to grant Prop 8 proponents’ meritorious motion.