Gay duo married by Ginsburg accused of raping student

Ruth Ginsburg

Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Ginsburg was criticized for publicly advocating for same-sex marriage and officiating a ceremony while the issue was before the court.

There was a formal motion for her to recuse herself from the case, which she ignored.

But now one of the duos she married is dragging her name back into the news.

The New York Daily News reports David Daniels and Scott Walters, who were married by Ginsburg in 2014, are under investigation for allegedly drugging and violently raping a student in 2010.

The report notes Daniels, 52, is "the most famous countertenor in the world," while his "now-husband Walters, 36, is a respected conductor."

"The couple is so highly regarded that they were married in 2014 by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg," the Daily News noted.

Samuel Schultz alleges that in 2010, the two men drugged and raped him following a performance in Texas.

He claims he was left unconscious and woke the next afternoon in a strange bed, disoriented, in pain and bleeding.

The report said Schultz was a 23-year-old graduate student at Rice University, and he kept his experience secret for years because he feared repercussions.

"Emboldened by both the #MeToo movement and upon learning that Daniels had made tenure at the University of Michigan – where he'd be in close personal contact with young aspiring singers – Schultz filed a complaint with the U-M Police Department's special victims unit in July. Authorities in Michigan, in turn, passed the complaint on to the Houston Police Department," the report said.

"The investigation is active and no arrests have been made, Houston police said. They declined to provide any further details."

He alleges he met Daniels and Walters in 2010 at a party for Houston Grand Opera's run of "Xerxes," and it was at a corporate apartment where they were staying that he accepted a drink.

"He says he only remembers taking a few sips of the drink at the couple’s apartment – and then he blacked out," the report said.

His therapist at the time said the incident affected the student's emotional and psychological state.

Walters and Daniels deny the claims.

WND reported at the time the Supreme Court was considering the marriage case there were calls for both Ginsburg and Associate Justice Elena Kagan to recuse themselves.

Fox News reported they were urged to recuse themselves because they both tacitly endorsed same-sex marriage by performing ceremonies. Also cited was Kagan's prior work to promote homosexual rights and Ginsburg's public commentary on the issue.

The Foundation for Moral Law filed a motion asking for their recusal, but the justices did not respond.

Also, the American Family Association conducted a campaign urging citizens to explain to their representatives in Congress why the two justices shouldn't participate in the case.

"U.S. Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg should recuse themselves from any cases involving the homosexual marriage issue on the basis that they have conducted same-sex marriage ceremonies," the campaign letter stated.

"Both of these justices' personal and private actions actively endorsing gay marriage clearly indicate how they would vote on same-sex marriage cases already before the Supreme Court," AFA said.

But there was a simple solution, AFA contended.

"Congress has directed that federal judicial officers must disqualify themselves from hearing cases in specified circumstances. Title 28, Section 455 of the United States Code states 'any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.'

"Both Kagan and Ginsburg have not only been partial to same-sex marriage, they have proven themselves to be activists in favor of it! … Urge your members of Congress to privately and publicly call on Justices Kagan and Ginsburg to properly and legally recuse themselves from cases involving same-sex marriage," the campaign said.

Ginsburg had publicly voiced her opinion, as WND reported.

See the comments:

The far-left justice revealed her preferences in a Bloomberg News interview when she said it "would not take a large adjustment" for Americans "should the justices say gay marriage is constitutional."

"How can Ginsburg possibly think that it's proper judicial conduct for her to speak out on this issue while the marriage case is pending before the court?" asked National Review columnist Ed Whelan. "If she had any sense of her duty to maintain both the appearance and the reality of impartiality, she would recognize that she is now obligated to recuse herself from the case.

"But of course she won't."

She didn't.

Herbert Titus, of counsel to the law firm of William J. Olson, P.C., and a nationally recognized constitutional authority, had told WND the issue of recusal usually comes up regarding financial conflicts of interest.

However, he said, "I would think on an issue as filled with emotion and conflict as this ... that a judge should not have put themselves in a position that either of these judges put themselves."

Titus said the two justices must have known at the time that it was almost inevitable for the issue to be put to the Supreme Court, "yet they went ahead and put their official imprimatur on same-sex marriage."