Gay Today: World

Republican Asks State
to Probe Remark by Gay Judge

The Front Page

Charlotte, N.C.--A Mecklenburg Co. commissioner has asked for an investigation of openly gay Superior Court Judge Ray Warren for referring to himself as a felon and for criticizing a political candidate.

Warren, a former longtime Republican, is the highest-ranking openly gay official in the state.

Bill James, a Republican, mailed his complaint to N.C. Attorney General Mike Easley and to the state's seven-member Judicial Standards Commission on April 11.

According to a report in the Charlotte Observer (5/14/99), Easley doesn't plan to investigate the case.

James' complaint is based on a column Warren recently wrote for the Charlotte-based gay publication Q-Notes.

In the April 17 issue, Warren's column -- called Guy Talk -- was headlined "Trials of the Heart" and chronicled his breakup with another man. He describes dealing with his emotions while going through his typical workday (hence the pun on "trials").

In the essay, he mentions talking about his feelings with a sympathetic man in a gay bar: "He listens indulgently. We are two class I felons with 'gay agendas' consisting of family, work, relationships, God and community."

James complained that Warren had referred to himself as a "class I felon." Warren said that he was referring to the state's anti-sodomy law, but that he wasn't acknowledging engaging in sodomy.

"Without saying whether I do or I don't, I simply took Bill James' assumption that I do and ran with it," Warren told the Observer.

James said that he doesn't know which felony Warren was referring to, but that it doesn't matter.

Commissioner Bill James

"Whatever the crime he is admitting to, I can think of no reason that a sitting judge should be able to [flout] the law by publicly stating that he is violating the law," James wrote to Easley.

Warren called James' complaint "the equivalent of Jerry Falwell criticizing Tinky Winky." James, he said, "is reveling in his public role as inquisitor and persecutor of gay people."

Warren was one of James' earliest backers, supporting his run for the City Council in 1993. Both men have contributed to each other's campaigns, according to the Observer.

James said he filed the complaint because Warren's column sounded "like he was sticking his finger in the eye of the law."

"If he was to keep it to himself, quietly and with some dignity say, 'I'm gay,' that's one thing," James said. "But when he flouts the law, that requires a response from the law."

Warren Left GOP
Warren left the Republican Party last month after a proposed state hate crimes bill was rejected by the GOP majority in the North Carolina legislature.

Warren, who came out last December, said he became an "unaffiliated" registered voter because there was "so little openness in the Republican Party."

He added that he couldn't stay in a party that "condones discrimination, intimidation and violence." NC lawmakers in late April rejected a proposed hate crimes measure that would have added sexual orientation with all but two Republicans voting against the bill.

"One grows tired of being the only black person in the Klan," Judge Warren said of his decision to abandon his GOP affiliation. Mecklenburg County Republican Party Chairman Frank Whitney disagreed with Warren's description of the GOP.

"I don't think anybody in the Republican Party ever endorsed discrimination, intimidation or particularly violence," he said. Warren said he felt that gays and lesbians would eventually be made part of the state's hate crimes law, but, he predicted, "it probably won't happen until somebody is murdered or beaten and [legislators] find their conscience."

Critical of Gubernatorial Candidate
Commissioner James further complained about Warren's criticism of former Charlotte mayor Richard Vinroot -- criticism that amounted to participation in political activities, he said, which would violate the state's Code of Judicial Conduct.

In the same column, Warren accused Vinroot, a Republican who is running for governor, of having a "mob" mentality.

Richard Vinroot

He was referring to an interview the former mayor gave to the Charlotte Observer in February, in which Vinroot said: "I spoke out about my opposition to having that [Gay Pride] march in this city. It promoted a gay agenda… I don't want to promote things that are not good for my community."

"So, Richard Vinroot, once the hope of moderate Republicanism, has decided to join the lynch mob," Warren wrote. "I wondered, aside from political considerations, if our former mayor has ever considered what the 'gay agenda' of the average gay man might be..."

Warren told the Observer he wasn't telling people not to vote for Vinroot. "I just took a comment he made and took issue with what he said," Warren said.

A spokesman for Attorney General Easley said James should have sent his complaint to the Mecklenburg County district attorney.

"This does not fall under the jurisdiction of the attorney general's office," Jay Rieff said. "It's up to the local district attorney to decide whether an investigation of this nature is warranted."

Deborah Carrington, executive secretary of the Judicial Standards Commission, said she could not comment until the commission had reviewed James' complaint. The commission can recommend to the state Supreme Court that a judge be censured or removed.

Warren is a former state legislator who ran for the state Supreme Court in 1996 and Court of Appeals last November. Warren's current judicial term ends in 2002.

Courtesy The Front Page, a newspaper serving the gay and lesbian community in North Carolina , May 21, 1999 issue.