Schumer recommends openly gay man for federal judgeship

New York Sen. Charles Schumer announced Monday that he has recommended an openly gay man to President Barack Obama to serve as a judge in federal court in Manhattan, a history-making nomination.

Schumer said Daniel Alter, a former federal prosecutor and national director of the civil rights division of the Anti-Defamation League, would become the nation's first openly gay male judge if confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

A Yale Law School graduate who clerked on the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, Alter specialized in First Amendment issues and assisted on the team that prosecuted the 1998 conspiracy to bomb U.S. embassies in Africa, Schumer said.

"I'm proud to nominate Daniel Alter. Period," said Schumer, who has sway over nominating judges and prosecutors in New York as the senior senator from Obama's party. "But I am equally proud to nominate him because he is a history-maker who will be the first openly gay male judge in American history."