The U.S. District Court in San Francisco on June 14 denied an effort to vacate the ruling of Judge Vaughn R. Walker that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, which was challenged because of the judge’s 10-year gay relationship.

Prop. 8, which banned gay marriage in California, was voted into law in 2008 before being challenged, and then overturned by Walker, who is now retired. But recently, Prop. 8 supporters, ProtectMarriage.com, called Walker’s ruling into question because of the revelation that he has been in a gay relationship for more than 10 years.

“Instead of revealing these facts to the parties and their counsel, Judge Walker consciously kept them to himself even though the subject matter of the case presented an issue in which Judge Walker and his partner had a direct interest,” said Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel, for the Alliance Defense Fund, co-counsel for ProtectMarriage.com.

West Hollywood Mayor John Duran, one of four HIV-positive elected officials in the country and a gay man, said he believed the Prop. 8 supporters were reaching to find an argument.

“Really, we didn’t think it was going to go anywhere,” Duran said. “It was a temporary diversion, it failed. Now, we can get back to the real issue.”

Duran said that proponents of Prop. 8 were using reasons of custom and tradition to support their argument, an argument that was previously used to maintain slavery and subjugate women.

After the ruling, lead counsel for ProtectMarriage.com, Charles J. Cooper of Cooper and Kirk, PLLC, said that their legal team “obviously disagrees with today’s ruling.”

“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,” Cooper said.

Both Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom applauded Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware’s decision to uphold the ruling originally made by Walker.

“The courts affirmed the decision in the Proposition 8 trial, siding with legal scholars across the country and a majority of Californians,” Villaraigosa said. “Marriage is a civil right, not a privilege reserved for a select class of citizens. I look forward to once again presiding over the marriages of same-sex couples at city hall. Until that day, I will continue to fight for full and equal protections under the law for the entire LGBT community.”

Newsom called the decision a victory for California couples, families and their friends who believe marriage is a constitutional right for all Americans.

“The frivolous appeals of those who are pushing for and defending government sanctioned discrimination have been unequivocally shut down in court today,” Newsom said. “I look forward to the day when the struggle for equality is over and the dream becomes reality.”

In a separate ruling, Tuesday in U,S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Donovan ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act, in which the federal government defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman, violated the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection guarantee.