Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware recently upheld the ruling against Proposition 8, despite outcry from supporters of Prop 8 to have the ruling thrown out because the Judge who made the original ruling in the case was a gay man himself.

The June 13 ruling adds another chapter to the battle waged at the ballot box and the bench over the definition of marriage.

In 2010, Judge Vaughn Walker declared that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional because it violated the rights of Gay Americans in California. A few months later, it was revealed that Judge Walker was in fact involved in a long-term relationship with another man.

Prop 8 attorney Austin Nimocks says Walker should have been obligated to reveal his sexual orientation from the very start.

“Instead of revealing these facts to the parties and their counsel,” said Nimocks. “Judge Walker kept them to himself even though the subject matter of the case presented an issue in which Judge Walker and his partner had a direct interest.”

The attorney for two same-sex couples who filed the original suit, Theodore Boutrous, Jr., stated that Prop 8’s attorneys are only challenging Walker’s ruling because the judge is gay.

“This is a desperate ‘Hail Mary’ pass because they think they’re going to lose,” said Boutrous. “Courts in race cases, gender cases, have rejected these arguments where litigants try to bounce a judge off a case when they’re unhappy with the result because the judge is from a minority group.”

Judge Ware decided to keep the ruling how it stands because he believed that Judge Walker’s sexual orientation should not be an issue as a result of the fact that judges are supposed to be impartial regardless of the subject matter of the case.

Furthermore, Judge Ware believed ruling to throw out Judge Walker’s ruling on the grounds of his sexual orientation would set a bad precedent.

“The fact that a federal judge shares a fundamental characteristic with a litigant, or shares membership in a large association such as a religion, has been categorically rejected by federal courts as a sole basis for requiring a judge to recluse her or himself,” wrote Judge Ware.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera praised Judge Ware’s decision, saying “The motion boiled down to a claim that a gay judge cannot fairly rule in a case that addresses the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens. This same argument has been consistently rejected by the courts in cases presided over by judges who were African-American, women, Jewish, Catholic or disabled.”

However, supporters of Proposition 8 claim that the fight is not over and they will continue their efforts to defend the will of the people of California to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

There are more appeals to the decision pending and there are rumors that the case could go all the way up to the Supreme Court for a final ruling.