NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard wrote in a column this week that coverage of Federal Judge Vaughn Walker, who ruled against California's Proposition 8 anti-same-sex marriage ballot measure, has been incomplete.

Particularly, she noted, is reference to Vaughn being gay, which she says often contains no verification:

Saying matter-of-factly that Walker is gay, without his confirmation, violates NPR's policy against publishing or airing rumors, allegations or reports about private lives of anyone unless there is a compelling news reason to do so.

Deciding when there is a compelling news reason to mention someone's sexual orientation is a tough ethical decision.

But, in a case such as this, the first obligation is to verify that the person is gay and that can only come from Walker or close personal friends or family who are quoted by name. As far as I could determine, Walker has never openly said he is gay.

That Walker is gay seems to be an accepted fact among some news media. In February, a column in the San Francisco Chronicle said that Walker's sexual orientation was an “open legal secret.”

The column did not quote anyone on the record who knew for a fact that Walker is gay. When I asked about sources, NPR cited the Chronicle column, a dozen or so Internet links to show it was widely discussed in California and gay press - and that Walker isn't denying it.

She later adds:

But let's say he is openly gay, so what? Is Walker's sexual orientation relevant to the story about Proposition 8?

No, in my view it clearly is not.

The real issue is the law: Is the voter-approved ban on gay marriages constitutional, and how well-reasoned is the judge's 136-page decision overturning that ban? His sexual orientation has nothing to do with these legal questions.