Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Has Extreme Anti-LGBTQ History

Judge Brian Hagedorn of Wisconsin

When an individual sits on the bench as a judge - in any court - the responsibility is to be fair and unbiased in applying the law. The public needs to know judges don’t bring their own personal judgements into the courtroom.

Which is why many in Wisconsin are concerned about the candidacy of State Appeals Court Judge Brian Hagedorn for the state Supreme Court.

According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, in 2016, Hagedorn helped found the Augustine Academy in Merton, Wisconsin.

The private religious school bans students, teachers, and parents from being in gay relationships.

The school's statement of faith declares that "Adam and Eve were made to complement each other in a one-flesh union that establishes the only normative pattern of sexual relations for men and women, such that marriage ultimately serves as a type of the union between Christ and his church."

The school’s Code of Personal Conduct (listed in the school teacher application) specifically dictates no “immoral sexual activity” which is defined as “any form of touching or nudity for the purpose of evoking sexual arousal apart from the context of marriage between one man and one woman.”

Violations of the code of conduct could result in teaches being fired. And students face possible expulsion from the school should they or their parents be discovered violating the rules.

It isn’t unusual for a private, faith-based school to have such policies.

However, Hagedorn’s close relationship to the school, which he still oversees, gives pause as to how neutral he would be as a judge on the state’s highest court.

In that the nonpartisan court hears cases that involve LGBTQ discrimination based on “deeply held religious beliefs,” it’s difficult to see Hagedorn putting his personal beliefs aside in such cases.

Analiese Eicher, executive director One Wisconsin Now, expressed her concerns that Hagedorn “remains intimately associated with an organization that actively discriminates against the LGBTQ community.”

Stephan Thompson, a member of the schools board of directors, defended Hagedorn saying he “treats everyone fairly under the law.”

"He is running for the Supreme Court to protect religious freedoms for all Wisconsinites, regardless of faith," added Thompson. "Yet the latest smear is just another example of attacks on his own faith."

But the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has previously reported on blog posts made by Hagedorn while in law school where he once wrote gay rights could lead to legalized bestiality.

In 2005, he wrote, “The idea that homosexual behavior is different than bestiality as a constitutional matter is unjustifiable.”

Hagedorn has stated he sets aside his personal beliefs as a member of the state Appeals Court, and would continue to do so if elected to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Hands Big Loss To Conservatives On Voting Districts

Conservatives lost big today in a seldom-seen unanimous ruling from the Supreme Court on how voting districts are drawn.

From The New Civil Rights Movement:

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a rare unanimous decision, has just ruled that states may rely on total population, and not just eligible voter population, when redrawing voter districts. Conservatives in Texas argued that only eligible voters should be relied upon when redistricting, claiming the U.S. Constitution forbids counting immigrants, children, and prisoners, who are not legally eligible to vote.

"The plaintiffs alleged the Texas legislative map effectively diluted the representation of citizens in rural, Republican-leaning areas in favor of Democratic-trending cities like Houston, where the population includes immigrants and children who are ineligible to vote," the Wall Street Journal reports.

"As the Framers of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment comprehended, representatives serve all residents, not just those eligible to vote," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who authored the decision, wrote.

BREAKING: SCOTUS unanimously rejects Texas GOP attempt to limit voting power of Hispanics & other minority groups https://t.co/nSShQLktr4

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 4, 2016

Special edition of Marriage Watch by AFER on Prop 8 SCOTUS appeal

The American Foundation for Equal Rights looks at today's appeal by the Prop 8 proponents and what the next few months look like in terms of a time line on a final decision on the Prop 8 debacle.

US Supreme Court receives appeal on the overturn of Prop 8

The US Supreme Court today  received an appeal on the overturn of Prop 8. Chris Geidner reports:

Supporters of California's constitutional amendment banning same-sex couples from marrying, Proposition 8, have asked the Supreme Court to hear the ongoing challenge to the law in order to reverse an appeals court decision from earlier this year that struck down the amendment as unconstitutional.

Specifically, they ask the court in a filing today to decide "Whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State of California from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman."

Arguing that "[u]nique recognition of a unique relationship in no way disapproves or dishonors other relationships that the State has chosen to recognize differently," the Proposition 8 proponents ask the court to take the case to correct the "manifest errors" of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and "to return to the People themselves this important and sensitive issue."

AFER has 30 days to respond to the filing.

The Supreme Court is currently on summer recess and will not announce which cases it will review until this falls.

(h/t JoeMyGod)

American Bar Assoc poll: ObamaCare likely to be upheld by Supreme Court

The Obama health care reform law is likely to be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, predict more than a dozen academics, lawyers and journalists who follow the Supreme Court who were polled by the American Bar Association’s magazine Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases.

Approximately 85 percent of the panel, who were promised anonymity, predict the law will be upheld.

The law’s individual mandate – which requires individuals buy health insurance or pay a penalty – will be affirmed by a vote of 6-3, the group predicts. All of the experts think that the court’s liberal wing – Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor – will vote to uphold it. Chief Justice John Roberts will join them, 69 percent of the experts think, as will Justice Anthony Kennedy, according to 53 percent.
(source)