Approach the bench: Judge David Young is the latest addition to daytime courtroom drama. Finally a gay man is getting paid to be judgmental.

THE FACT THAT DAVID YOUNG IS GAY is not the hook! This is stressed to me by both Young and executive producer Michael Rourke in separate interviews. The hook, says the judge, is that he will "blend humor, compassion, a lot of hugging and strength and trying to get families back together" on his new daytime TV court show, Judge David Young, which premieres in syndication September 10.

But that doesn't sound all that different from other court shows. The gay thing does, which is great. The fact that Young is gay should be the hook, because if ever there was a genre that screamed for a gay male lead, it's daytime TV courtroom drama. Ever since insouciant drag queen Judge Judy brought her irate-Chihuahua brand of justice to the bench, the format has relied on sass, sharp verbal dropkicks, and finely tuned comic timing. "A lot of gay men love Judge Judy," Young rightly points out. "She's a diva to us."

But Judge David Young won't be a gay court show so much as a court show that happens to be gay. Young isn't remotely closeted-he's not "straight-acting," and he occasionally refers to his partner, Scott, from the bench. The defendants and plaintiffs before him, however, suffer from the same types of dysfunctional discord that plague any TV courtroom: security deposits unreturned, children run amok, relationships tom asunder, and pet custody struggles.

"I think people like to see conflict," says Young, "but I also think people like to see resolution. Because so many times in our lives we don't see fairness." And this too is an opportunity for a gay sensibility to shine through. "I don't tolerate bigotry, because as a gay man I've witnessed bigotry firsthand," says Young, who believes that such life experience makes for a discerning judge. A good example: When I sat in his studio audience, I witnessed a case in which the defendant was a father who had forsaken his runaway daughter and was now being held accountable for her misdeeds.

Normally, I watch these shows and think, where do these people come from? Don't they have jobs? But watching the show play out live was a strangely affecting experience. On TV it's difficult to perceive these people as actually real. But as Young took the absentee father to task--first sternly, then with increasing empathy--for forgetting that not everyone in this country has the privilege of being a parent, you could tell he was genuinely involved.

"My coming-out story was very positive," says Young. "I had loving parents. But ... there are so many people in our community who can't say that, who are so tortured. I just want to shake these parents and say, 'He's your son, she's your daughter. The love must be unconditional.'"

Of course, not all the cases are so earnest. At a second taping I witnessed a young woman try to explain away the missing limb on a now three-legged dog she'd been hired to look after. There was stuttering and talking out of turn which prompted the requisite sharp rebuke from Judge Young. There was mumbling and crying and a box of Kleenex delivered by a sassy black woman bailiff named Tawya.

Young got his start working as a prosecutor in Miami-Dade County under Janet Reno, eventually being twice reelected there as a circuit court judge beginning in 2000. Scott Bernstein, his partner of 121/2 years, is also a judge. "He's very low-key, made all A's in school, a brilliant man," says Young. "Me, you want to sit next to at a party."

In fact, it was at a law firm holiday party that Young first laid eyes on the charming young man. They went out to lunch, where Scott talked about his love for the symphony, opera, theater--and his girlfriend. "I said, 'Scott, straight men are not founders of the first support group for the symphony, they don't love Broadway, and they don't dress like you do.' A year later I saw him at a gay bar in Miami."

You might think that with two judges living together things could get a bit ... judgmental, especially with the pressures and stresses of Young's new career as a TV personality. But the couple say that's not so. "I don't think it's hit home for either one of us yet," says Scott. "Part of my job in all this is to make sure David still takes out the garbage and walks the dog and we lead our normal life. That's what they tell me my job is, anyway."

But is the camera-ready David Young who we're watching on the bench the real David Young? I ask Scott in private, and he replies, "David's no different at home than he is on TV. He's irreverent, compassionate, funny--he's a lunatic."