EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) — The federal judge who struck down
Indiana’s gay marriage ban said he’s well aware his decision upset some
people, but that federal judges can’t let public opinion sway their
decisions.
U.S. District Judge Richard Young said it’s for the
common good that federal judges are immune to political pressure,
indifferent to opinion polls and not beholden even to the politicians
who appoint them. That freedom allows them to concern themselves only
with the cases before them, he said.
"You determine the facts, and you apply the facts to the law," he told the Evansville Courier
& Press (http://bit.ly/1ohqUPE ).
"Our forefathers, in determining that federal judges have lifetime
tenure and should be isolated from politics, turns out to be a very wise
decision."
Young ruled last Wednesday that Indiana’s same-sex
marriage ban was unconstitutional. His ruling allowed hundreds of gay
and lesbian couples around the state to obtain marriage licenses around
Indiana, and many of them were wed.
The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of
Appeals issued a stay Friday putting Young’s ruling — and county clerks’
ability to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples — on hold.
Young said his office received "a significant number of calls" after his ruling, but staff
members handled those calls.
"I
haven’t talked to anybody, but they call in and, you know, we’re here
to serve the public and we can’t ignore those calls. We have to answer
them, talk to them, and listen," the judge said.
Young has a ready answer for anyone who might believe his ruling was judicial activism at its worst.
"They
call it judicial activism if they don’t agree with the decision," he
said. "If they agree with the decision, then it’s certainly not judicial
activism. That means the judge is following the law and doing the right
thing."
Young began his career not in courtrooms but in
Democratic Party politics, when he helped with then-Sen. Birch Bayh’s
1976 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The
61-year-old Iowa native has voted in Democratic primaries several times
during his 24 years on the state and federal benches. He cast his last
such ballot in 2008, the year Indiana’s Democratic presidential primary
assumed a pivotal role in the nomination battle between Barack Obama and
Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"Coming in to Evansville, not knowing a
whole lot of people, becoming involved in politics was a way for me to
meet a lot of people with similar interests," he said Friday.
Young
was nominated for the federal bench in 1997 by then-President Bill
Clinton to succeed retiring federal judge Gene E. Brooks. He took office
in March 1998 after approval by the Senate.