Judge files lawsuit seeking to overturn Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling
A Texas judge who refused to marry same-sex couples because of her faith has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision that recognized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Judge Dianne Hensley, who has served as a justice of the peace in Waco, Texas, since 2015, filed a lawsuit Friday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas against the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, an agency with which Hensley has been involved in a years-long legal battle. Represented by former Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell, Hensley contends that the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision is unconstitutional.
"Officiating a wedding ceremony is speech, and the commissioners are preventing Judge Hensley from engaging in this speech unless she agrees to perform homosexual marriages in violation of her Christian faith and in violation of Texas law," the filing reads.
Hensley and other Waco judges and justices of the peace stopped officiating weddings altogether after the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage a national right. Instead, any same-sex couple that asked Hensley to perform a marriage ceremony received a statement apologizing for what Hensley described as a “sincerely held religious belief as a Christian” that prohibits her from officiating such ceremonies, ABC affiliate KXXV-TV reported.
“I have no desire to offend anybody, but the last person I want to offend is God,” she previously told the station. “So I’m entitled to accommodations just as much as anyone else.”
In November of that year, Hensley was publicly sanctioned for refusing to perform same-sex weddings after the State Commission on Judicial Conduct alleged she violated a canon of judicial conduct prohibiting judges from engaging in conduct outside their judicial role.
The commission rescinded that ruling in September 2024, in light of a decision issued by the Texas Supreme Court.
In October, the Texas Supreme Court issued a clarification to the state’s Judicial Code of Conduct, which found “it is not a violation of these canons [of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct] for a judge to publicly refrain from performing a wedding ceremony based upon a sincerely held religious belief.”
As part of a Dec. 1 court filing in Travis County District Court, lawyers for the commission argued that the panel’s clarification did not give Hensley permission to “opt out” of certain officiating duties while opting to perform others.
“The comment only gives a judge the authority to ‘opt out’ of officiating due to a sincere religious belief, but does not say that a judge can, at the same time, welcome to her chambers heterosexual couples for whom she willingly offers to conduct marriage ceremonies,” the filing stated.
According to the lawsuit, Hensley officiated roughly 80 weddings before the Supreme Court's 2015 ruling. Since then, she has officiated only four additional weddings that were previously scheduled before the ruling.
Last month, the nation’s highest court declined to hear a similar case from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who gained national attention when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples while serving as a clerk in Rowan County.
In 2022, the Obergefell ruling was federally codified when a Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress passed legislation that then-President Joe Biden signed into law.
