Q: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
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. 
  
 Walker, a Republican appointee, has never said publicly whether he wished to marry his partner. But he told reporters that he never considered his sexual orientation grounds for declining to preside over the Proposition 8 challenge. 
  
 "It is not reasonable to presume that a judge is incapable of making an impartial decision about the constitutionality of a law, solely because, as a citizen, the judge could be affected by the proceedings," Ware wrote in his ruling. 
  
 Photos: Reaction to court's decision to uphold ban in 2009 
  
 The chief judge said all Californians share an interest in having the the Constitution enforced. The "single interest" Walker shared with the same-sex couples who challenged Proposition 8 "gave him no greater interest in a proper decision on the merits that would exist for any other judge or citizen," Ware wrote. 
  
 [Updated, 2 p.m.: Ware said it was unreasonable to assume from Walker's relationship that he had such a great interest in marrying that he was incapable of performing his judicial duties. 
  
 "The mere fact that a judge is in a relationship with another person -- whether of the same sex or the opposite sex -- does not ipso facto imply that the judge must be so interested in marrying that person that he would be unable to exhibit the impartiality which, it is presumed, all federal judges maintain." 
  
 To assume Walker had a conflict of interest would be speculation based on "unsubstantiated suspicion that the judge is personally biased or prejudiced," Ware continued. 
  
 The chief judge also said that Walker's failure to disclose his same-sex relationship prior to his ruling could mean that he had considered the situation and decided that no reasonable observer would conclude that his impartiality was questionable. 
  
 "Silence is by its very nature ambiguous and thus is open to multiple interpretation," Ware wrote. 
  
 If Walker had disclosed "intimate but irrelevant details of his personal life," he could have "set a pernicious precedent" for other judges by promoting disclosure of highly personal information, Ware said. 
  
 Chad Griffin, who formed a civil rights group that launched the federal case, said Ware's ruling "erased all doubt that the Prop. 8 trial was anything but fair and thorough and sent a powerful message that extreme fringe groups cannot strong-arm the law." 
  
 Peter Renn, attorney with Lambda Legal, a gay rights legal advocacy group, said Ware's ruling "decisively rejected an outrageous attack on the integrity of Judge Walker, not to mention judges in general." 
  
 "Prop. 8 was declared unconstitutional because it is unconstitutional -- not because the judge is gay," Renn said. 
  
 A spokesperson for ProtectMarriage could not immediately be reached.] 
  
 Charles Cooper, the lead attorney for ProtectMarriage, said the group would appeal Ware's motion and "continue our tireless efforts to defend the will of the people of California to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman." 
  
 Tuesday's ruling followed a three-hour hearing Monday in San Francisco in which backers of Proposition 8 argued that Walker had a personal stake in the outcome of the marriage debate while opponents of the ban countered that the challenge was a veiled attack on Walker's sexual orientation. 
  
 No court has ever upheld the removal of a judge from a civil rights case because of his or her race, religion or gender, according to lawyers in the case. 
  
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 -- Maura Dolan in San Francisco 
  
 Photo: Judge Vaughn R. Walker, now retired, speaks at a news conference in April. Credit: Beff Diefenbach / Reuters ||||| SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge refused Tuesday to set aside a former colleague's ruling overturning California's ban on same-sex marriage and said the jurist's long-term relationship with another man was not a legitimate reason to accuse him of bias. 
  
 "It is not reasonable to presume that a judge is incapable of making an impartial decision about the constitutionality of a law solely because, as a citizen, the judge could be affected by the proceedings," Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware said in rejecting conflict-of-interest charges against his predecessor, Vaughn Walker. 
  
 Sponsors of Proposition 8, the November 2008 initiative barring gay and lesbian marriages, had asked Ware to nullify Walker's ruling in August against the measure and declare that he should not have heard the case. 
  
 They said his disclosure in April, six weeks after his retirement from the bench, of his 10-year same-sex relationship showed he had a stake in the outcome of the lawsuit challenging Prop. 8. 
  
 Although Walker has not said whether he and his partner intend to marry, Prop. 8's backers argued that his silence entitles the public to presume they were planning to wed when he presided over the trial in January 2010. 
  
 Ware, who heard arguments over Walker's role in San Francisco on Monday, disagreed. The fact that a judge is in a relationship, he said, doesn't necessarily mean he is "so interested in marrying the person that he would be unable to exhibit the impartiality which, it is presumed, all federal judges maintain." 
  
 A gay judge is entitled to rule in a gay-rights case, even if his decision could provide him "some speculative future benefit," Ware said. 
  
 He said disqualifying Walker because he is a member of a group potentially affected by his ruling would also require "recusal of minority judges in most, if not all, civil rights cases." 
  
 Besides, Ware said, the Prop. 8 case did not affect only a minority group. 
  
 "We all have an equal stake in a case that challenges the constitutionality of a restriction on a fundamental right," he said. 
  
 The judge also rejected arguments that Walker had been legally obliged to disclose his relationship before the trial. Courts have required judges to reveal close ties to people with a financial interest in a case, or to a lawyer for one of the parties, Ware said. But Walker had no duty to disclose "intimate, but irrelevant, details about his personal life," he said. 
  
 Prop. 8's sponsors, a conservative religious coalition called Protect Marriage, said it disagreed with the ruling, without going into detail. 
  
 "Our legal team will appeal that decision and continue our tireless efforts to defend the will of the people of California to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman," said attorney Charles Cooper. 
  
 Walker ruled that Prop. 8 discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation and gender. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has put the decision on hold while it considers an appeal from Protect Marriage, whose legal standing to argue the case is under review in the state Supreme Court. 
  
 Theodore Boutrous, a lawyer for two same-sex couples who challenged Prop. 8, said Ware's ruling "makes it clear that gay and lesbian judges are entitled to the same presumption of fairness and impartiality as all other federal judges." 
  
 This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle |||||
A:
A victory for gay marriage in California today: The judge who overturned the state's ban last year was under no obligation to recuse himself because he is gay and in a long-term relationship, a federal judge ruled. "It is not reasonable to presume that a judge is incapable of making an impartial decision about the constitutionality of a law, solely because, as a citizen, the judge could be affected by the proceedings," wrote the judge. Opponents of gay marriage had argued that the now-retired Vaughn Walker should not have been allowed to decide the legality of Prop 8 because he had a personal stake in the outcome, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. No dice, said today's ruling. That logic would require "recusal of minority judges in most, if not all, civil rights cases," wrote James Ware, chief judge of US District Court in San Francisco. A separate appeal of the Prop 8 ruling is still pending in federal court, notes the Los Angeles Times.