LCMS Judge On Trial For Her Views On Marriage

More on Ruth Neely, the Wyoming judge and member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, who is facing removal from office, plus a $40,000 fine, because she told a reporter that she won’t perform same-sex marriages because of her religious beliefs. This, even though she is not obliged to perform weddings at all, isn’t paid for doing so, has never been asked to do a gay wedding, another judge in the community is willing to do it in her place, and the Wyoming constitution specifically says that no one can be removed from public office “because of his opinion on any matter of religious belief whatever.”

The state’s judicial commission has recommended her ouster, and the case is before the Wyoming Supreme Court. More details and updates after the jump, as well as my own thoughts and questions.

From Michael Avramovich, The Sad Tale Of Judge Ruth Neely – Mere Comments:

One current case in point that illustrates the “price of citizenship” involves Municipal Judge and Circuit Court Magistrate Ruth Neely of Pinedale, Wyoming. Pinedale is a small town of about 2,000 residents, and is the gateway to the Jackson Hole area. Judge Neely has served the people of Pinedale well for more than twenty years. Her days were spent in adjudicating traffic tickets, public drunkenness, and other relatively minor offenses.

But now, Judge Neely has now because a national cause celebre. In 2014, Judge Neely, who is a member of the conservative Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod), told a reporter that she would not perform same-sex “marriages” because of her religious beliefs. Notwithstanding the success of Brokeback Mountain, It does appear that no same-sex couples in Wyoming have ever asked her to officiate at a “wedding,” and there is apparently another judge in town who is willing to marry homosexuals. Nevertheless, the Wyoming Commission on Judicial Conduct and Ethics (the “Commission”) is recommending to the Wyoming Supreme Court that it remove Judge Neely from her duties, and order her to pay just a small fine of $40,000 for her intolerance and bias.

As you can well imagine, Judge Neely is fighting her removal, arguing that she has a constitutional right to voice her opinion. In fact, without apparent irony, the constitution of Wyoming even prohibits the state from finding a person incompetent to hold public office “because of his opinion on any matter of religious belief whatever.”

But as we learn daily, homosexual “rights” always trump a Christian’s rights of religion and conscience. Even though small-town magistrates like Judge Neely are not required or even paid by the state to perform weddings, the Commission has concluded that Judge Neely “manifested a bias,” and is therefore permanently unfit to serve as a judge. If the attempt to remove her from her position is successful, it would be the first time that a judge has been removed from office because of her religious beliefs about marriage.

[Keep reading. . .]

Since Judge Neely has never turned down anyone asking for a gay wedding, she hasn’t committed an overt act of what the state defines as discrimination. I assume that her removal is sought because her religious beliefs suggest that she has a bias against homosexuals that make her unfit to be a judge. So what disqualifies her is precisely her religious beliefs.

We often speak of someone’s “personal religious beliefs.” Some people might have a personal belief in gay marriage and someone else might have a personal belief that it’s wrong. But there are also religious beliefs specifically spelled out in a religious body that members are expected to adhere to. For many Protestants, just about all of their beliefs are “personal,” since their churches often don’t get all that specific in their doctrines and requirements. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, on the other hand, has explicit teachings about marriage, defined in its official documents.

So if the government decides that not believing in same-sex marriages disqualifies a person from public office, and a person voluntarily belongs to a religious organization that publicly teaches against gay marriage, wouldn’t that be disqualifying? And wouldn’t that constitute a “religious test” for public office, which is forbidden by the Constitution?

Let’s consider a bigger example, the Roman Catholic Church, which has specific, mandatory teachings that forbid recognition of same-sex marriages. Should Catholics, as well as Lutherans, not allowed to be judges? Then five of the U.S. Supreme Court justices would have to be removed.

There are far more Catholic judges than Lutheran ones. I wonder how they handle this situation. Given Catholicism’s view of sin, that co-operating with sin or enabling others to sin is itself a sin, I would think it would be an issue. Of course, American Catholics are notoriously free-and-easy about not going along with church teachings, as in the wide-spread ignoring of church doctrine about birth control, so I suspect many Catholic judges do perform gay weddings. But wouldn’t that be considered a mortal sin?

Then again, Catholics also have a system of casuistry that often finds loopholes in difficult moral situations. A Catholic judge might reason that he or she is just ratifying a contract rather than performing an actual wedding, since, not being sacramental, it lacks spiritual validity anyway. Or whatever. But I’m curious what canon law would say about this situation, and what the current practice is. (Catholic readers, please help us out with this.)

In any event, Judge Neely’s case would seem to be a clear infringement on religious liberty, if she is considered unfit for public office because of her LCMS beliefs.