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Not at all surprising.

A federal judge on Tuesday refused to invalidate last year's ruling against Proposition 8, deciding the gay jurist who overturned the same-sex marriage ban had no obligation to step aside because of a possible conflict of interest. The decision by Chief Judge James Ware of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco left the ruling by retired Judge Vaughn R. Walker in place. Walker’s decision remains on hold pending a separate appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Proponents of Proposition 8 argued that Walker's conflict was not his sexual orientation, but the fact that he was in a serious same-sex relationship that could conceivably lead to marriage.

NOTE: I'm a few hours late with this story, but I was stuck on the no-internet joy called Frontier Airlines.

VIDEO: CNN reports on the ruling.

Watch this!

Via press release:

Today, Chief Judge James Ware of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California heard arguments on a motion to invalidate former U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker's landmark ruling striking down Proposition 8.

Statement by NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell:

"Today's hearing made it crystal clear that the Prop 8 proponents' central claim--that Judge Walker should have recused himself from the case because he is in a same-sex relationship--is absolutely baseless. During the hearing, Judge Ware pointedly asked the attorney for the proponents whether an African-American judge would have to recuse himself from a race discrimination case because some people might view him as biased. As Judge Ware's question artfully showed, our legal system does not assume that judges who are in the majority with respect to their race, religion, sexual orientation or any other personal characteristic are the only ones who can be unbiased. Judges take an oath to be impartial and do their job faithfully. It is outrageous and offensive to suggest that a gay judge is incapable of fulfilling that vow, or that Judge Walker did not do so in this case. We are hopeful that the ruling will dismiss this bigoted attempt to discredit Judge Walker's eminently sound ruling that concluded correctly, after weeks of trial and months of careful consideration, that Prop 8 is unconstitutional."

A ruling is expected within 24 hours.

UPDATE: Lambda Legal weighs in.

"Instead of putting Prop 8 on trial, the proponents attempted to put the judge who presided over the case on trial. But the absurdity and offensiveness of the Proponents' position - that a gay judge cannot decide a civil rights issue - became even more apparent under the court's rigorous questioning. Apparently, the Proponents also believe that the impartiality of female judges who have been the victims of rape is open to question in cases involving sexual assault. The court is likely to deny this motion for what it is: a desperate and dangerous witch hunt for gay judges that comes at the expense of judicial integrity."

It looks like there will be no attempt to place a repeal of Proposition 8 on California's 2012 ballot.

“I’m not aware of a single donor who would support a ballot measure campaign,” said Chad Griffin, the co-founder and board president of the American Foundation for Equal Rights. “A ballot would be unwise, foolish and, in fact, dangerous.” That danger, according to several leaders in the gay community, comes from the potential impact that a failed effort in 2012 could have on the federal case, which was brought in 2009 by Mr. Griffin’s group. Mr. Griffin, an experienced fund-raiser, hired the high-powered legal team of David Boies and Theodore B. Olson to pursue a constitutional challenge to the law, and last August, a federal judge — Vaughn R. Walker of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California — sided with opponents of Proposition 8, finding that the voter-approved law violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process.

The California state Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday refused to advance a bill that would give private citizens the right to defend ballot measures in court. The bill, which was authored by Tea Party activist Sen. Tom Harman, failed 3-2 along party lines. The Sacramento Bee reports:

"California voters deserve to have their position defended when an initiative is challenged in court and the State refuses to defend it," GOP Sen. Tom Harman, author of the bill and a former primary candidate for attorney general, said in a statement. Harman introduced a similar bill in 2009 that also failed to make it through the Legislature. Opponents, including representatives from gay-rights group Equality California and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, argued during yesterday's committee hearing that the proposed change would conflict with the court's existing power to decide who can intervene in a case. They also argued that law would undermine the constitutional responsibilities delegated to the state attorney general.

RELATED: In February, Harman authored a similar bill which would force the state to defend all voter-approved ballot measures.

The New York Times has published a blistering editorial denouncing the attempt to nullify Judge Vaughn Walker's Prop 8 ruling because he is a gay man.

After the trial, Judge Walker said he is gay and involved in a long-term relationship. Last week, Proposition 8’s lawyers argued that the ruling should be tossed out because he had had a duty to recuse himself, or at least disclose the relationship at the start of the case. The claim is bogus. It is well established that personal characteristics, like race, sex, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, do not by themselves invoke the rule that judges must step aside if their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Our justice system relies on trusting members of the nation’s diverse bench to put aside their personal characteristics and abide by their duty of even-handedness. Any other approach would invite foolish and unacceptable results — female judges being kept from hearing rape or sexual discrimination cases, or black judges from hearing cases involving racial bias or civil rights.

Read the full editorial.

In another move in the seemingly unending Prop 8 battle, California Attorney General Kamala Harris has filed a brief declaring that private citizens do not have standing to defend the statute in court.

In it, she argued that only public officials exercising the executive power of government have authority to represent the state when laws passed by voters or the Legislature are challenged. “California law affords an initiative’s proponents no right to defend the validity of a successful initiative measure based only on their role in launching an initiative process,” Harris wrote. [snip] Lawyers for the coalition of religious and conservative groups that qualified the gay marriage measure for the ballot and campaigned for its passage have argued that initiative proponents need to be allowed to advocate for laws in court to prevent elected officials from effectively vetoing measures by not defending them in court. Harris contended in her brief that rather than empowering citizens, granting the sponsors of initiatives the ability to overrule the governor and attorney general’s judgment “would rob the electors of power by taking the executive power from elected officials and placing it instead in the hands of a few highly motivated but politically unaccountable individuals.”

The state Supreme Court is expected to hold a hearing on Prop 8 "sometime before the end of the year."