Judge Who Refused to Hear Cases Involving Any ‘Practicing Homosexual’ Resigns Ahead of Disciplinary Case

Citing ‘Conscientious Religious Objection’ He Claimed Discriminating Against Same-Sex Couples Was a ‘Matter of Conscience’

A Barren County, Kentucky family court judge has resigned, according to The Glasgow Daily Times, after a judicial commission began pursuing charges filed after he publicly announced he was refusing to hear adoption cases involving same-sex couples or LGBT people. 

In April, Judge W. Mitchell Nance told attorneys they should find another judge when filing cases with LGBT families. Judge Nance, who was re-elected to an 8-year term in 2014 after running unopposed, said “as a matter of conscience” he believes that “under no circumstance” would “the best interest of the child be promoted by the adoption by a practicing homosexual.”

He also said that while he has never been asked, he would refuse to marry a same-sex couple.

In May, after Nance refused calls to resign amid public protests, the ACLU, ACLU of Kentucky, Lambda Legal, Kentucky’s Fairness Campaign, and University of Louisville Law Professor Sam Marcosson jointly filed a complaint for violating Kentucky’s Code of Judicial Conduct. 

“Judge Nance’s acknowledgement that he is incapable of being fair to certain individuals because of their sexual orientation and on the basis of a demonstrably false stereotype establishes that he is incapable of performing the essential duties of his office,” said William Sharp, ACLU of Kentucky Legal Director. “While he is certainly free to hold his discriminatory beliefs, the fact that they prevent him from fairly and impartially acting as judge for all Kentuckians mandates that the Judicial Conduct Commission take swift action.”

Thursday night The Glasgow Daily Times reported Judge Nance had resigned. His resignation, however, is not effective until mid-December.

“His resignation follows formal charges against Nance by the Judicial Conduct Commission after Nance attempted to enter a general order last April preemptively recusing himself from adoption cases involving gay parents,” the newspaper reports.

Nance, 66, wouldn’t say if he resigned because he feared suspension or removal by the commission, pointing instead to his answer to the charges which his attorneys filed with the commission.

“I don’t have anything to say any further than what has been said,” Nance told CNHI News.

His attorneys go on to say that if the commission requires a formal response to the charges that “same-sex adoptions present a unique crisis of conscience for Judge Nance” and violate “his conscientious religious objection to a child’s adoption by a same-sex couple” because of his conviction such adoptions are not in the “best interest of a child.”

LGBT groups are pleased Nance is leaving.

“Judge Nance must have seen the writing on the wall,” Chris Hartman, Director of the Fairness Campaign, told the Glasgow Times. “He had proven he could not deliver the basic impartiality required by his office when it came to LGBTQ people and their families. His only possible pathway forward was resignation or removal from office.”

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