In 2019, Waco, Texas Justice of the Peace Dianne Hensley received an official “public warning” from the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct for refusing to officiate weddings for same-sex couples.
The warning, while public, did not come with any fine nor any severe sanctions or censure, as NCRM reported at the time, yet Judge Hensley sued. She retained a far-right wing anti-LGBTQ Christian activist group with ties to Trump, First Liberty Institute, to represent her in her $10,000 lawsuit for damages.
Three years later, almost to the day of her warning, a Texas bipartisan appeals court panel in Austin ruled against her.
“She failed to make her case, the three-member panel wrote,” The Dallas Morning News reported.
Her case essentially was “that the State Commission on Judicial Conduct [had] violated her religious freedom by reprimanding her for performing weddings solely for heterosexual couples,” the paper explained.
Hensley was not merely asking that she be allowed to refuse to wed same-sex couples, she was asking the Commission and its members be prevented “from investigating or sanctioning judges or justices of the peace who recuse themselves from officiating at same-sex weddings on account of their sincere religious beliefs.”
In their public warning, the Commission on Judicial Conduct had cited the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct, which states that a “judge shall conduct all of the judge’s extra-judicial activities so that they do not cast reasonable doubt on the judge’s capacity to act impartially as a judge.”
The Commission determined Hensley “should be publicly warned for casting doubt on her capacity to act impartially to persons appearing before her as a judge due to the person’s sexual orientation in violation of Canon 4A(l) of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct.”
The Dallas Morning News later added that “Hensley, who is represented by former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell, indicated on Dec. 19 that she intends to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.”
Jonathan Mitchell is the attorney who devised the legal mechanism, the basis for Texas’ controversial “vigilante,” or “bounty hunter” abortion ban that relies not on government officials but instead, “deputizes ordinary citizens to enforce an effective ban on abortions — and offers them a financial incentive to do so” as The New York Times explained.
Attorney Mitchell, The Dallas Morning News also reported, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, set his “sights on gay marriage.”
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court in 303 Creative ruled last month in favor of a private business owner who claims her personal religious beliefs prevent her from designing wedding websites for same-sex couples despite having never formally been asked to do so, Hensley is once again suing for the “right” to not marry same-sex couples.
And Mitchell is reportedly once again her attorney.
Hensley’s new “lawsuit alleges that the commission violated her rights under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Her lawsuit was dismissed by a lower appeals tribunal, but last month, the Texas Supreme Court said it will hear arguments on whether to revive the state judge’s lawsuit,” The Texas Tribune reports.
Hensley “argues that though the Supreme Court used the First Amendment and not state law in the 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis case, the decision is also applicable in her lawsuit.”
Some legal experts have told The Texas Tribune the Supreme Court’s 303 Creative case is far different from Hensley’s case.
“The law of the land is marriage equality. It’s as simple as that,” Johnathan Gooch, a spokesperson for Equality Texas told the Tribune. “If judges and justices of the peace were empowered to only enforce the laws that they agreed with, we would quickly descend into anarchy.”
Meanwhile, Jezebel also points out that “Hensley’s lawyer is none other than Jonathan Mitchell, the architect of Texas’ bounty hunter abortion ban known as S.B. 8 and counsel for the Texas man suing his ex-wife’s friends for allegedly helping her obtain abortion pills. Unsurprisingly, Mitchell opposes gay rights and said in a Supreme Court brief that Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 ruling that legalized marriage equality, is a court-invented right that is just “as lawless as Roe [v. Wade].” He also attacks LGBTQ rights more broadly: In 2018, Mitchell represented a group seeking exemptions to anti-discrimination rules so they could refuse to hire LGBTQ people it if countered their religious beliefs and he’s the lawyer arguing that insurance shouldn’t have to cover PrEP drugs.”