Who is Dianne Hensley? Case of Texas judge at center of same-sex storm heads to state Supreme Court
WACO, TEXAS: Justice of the Peace Dianne Hensley has refused to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples and decided to take her fight over religious beliefs to the state's Supreme Court.
The Texas Commission on Judicial Misconduct sanctioned Hensley in 2019 for conducting marriages exclusively between heterosexual couples. Shortly afterward, Hensley filed a lawsuit arguing that the commission punished her because of her faith, reported Daily Mail.
US Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015
According to the commission, Hensley has refused to perform same-sex marriages since August 2016 despite the couples being guaranteed equal rights. She stated that her religious beliefs prevent her from conducting same-sex marriages.
Hensley reportedly stated that her older brother was gay himself, and after he fell out with their parents, she hired an investigator to track him once a year and take a photograph as a gift for their mother.
She further stated that gay people were more likely to suffer from sexually transmitted diseases than heterosexuals.
She claimed, "My experience is, the closer I follow the Scriptures, the better my life goes. And this is pretty foundational."
She further added, "And I’m not going to get into it, but as an abstinence speaker, I dealt a whole lot with the sequelae of same-sex relationships."
Dianne Hensley seeks damages and injunction to stop future disciplinary action against her
The lawsuit filed by Hensley was dismissed by a state district judge in 2021. An appellate court upheld that decision, which brought it to the Texas Supreme Court.
The commission stated that Hensley was "casting doubt on her capacity to act impartially to persons appearing before her as a judge due to the person's sexual orientation."
"It may not be as fashionable to publicly disapprove same-sex marriage as it once was, but that is not a reason to question the impartiality of a judge who openly expresses a religious belief that marriage should exist only between one man and one woman," her attorneys wrote in the appeal to the Supreme Court.
"Judge Hensley, like many other Justices of the Peace in Waco and around Texas, stopped performing weddings after the US Supreme Court’s 2015 decision creating same-sex marriage," claimed First Liberty, the organization representing Hensley.
They added, "She came up with an innovative solution that followed the law and allowed her to reconcile her religious convictions while serving the needs of her community. And no one complained."
"But she’s been punished for ensuring that anyone who wants to get married can get married," the organization claimed.
Justice Heensley has stated that if homosexual couples approached her to conduct their weddings, they would be provided with a list of people whom they could contact instead by her office.