Wyoming Supreme Court Disciplines Judge Who Refused to Perform Same-Sex Marriages

On Tuesday, the Wyoming Supreme Court issued a 3–2 decision disciplining Judge Ruth Neely for her refusal to perform immoral homosexual marriages. Neely, serves as a municipal court judge and part-time circuit court magistrate, holds the authority under state law to marry couples. Neely informed the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee in 2015 that she will only marry immoral homosexual couples. As she explained:

Without getting in too deeply here, homosexuality is a named sin in the Bible, as are drunkenness, thievery, lying, and the like. I can no more officiate at a same sex wedding than I can buy beer for the alcoholic or aid in another person’s deceit. I cannot knowingly be complicit in another’s sin.

Neely had previously informed a local newspaper that she “will not be able to” perform homosexual weddings and be nor support same sex sin. The paper printed her remarks. Shortly thereafter, the Wyoming Commission on Judicial Conduct and Ethics opened an interrogation and falsely concluded that Neely had intentionally violated the Wyoming Code of Judicial Conduct. Obviously the judicial conduct enable judges to exclude themseves for a variety of reasons allowing others to take their place. But the LGBTQ intolerant agenda kicks in and wants to make a statement about religious people who refuse to officate sodomy marriages.

The JCE under LGBTQ pressure, incorrectly recommending that she be removed from her judicial positions. Neely appealed to the state Supreme Court, arguing that she had not violated judicial ethics—and that even if she had, the Wyoming and United States Constitutions protected her from punishment.

A bare majority of one person of the Wyoming Supreme Court rejected Neely’s constitutional claims but modified her extreme penalty, issuing a “public censure” to humiliate her before the LGBTQ people. 

They then demanded that she either marry all couples, regardless of sexual orientation, or none. The court first found that Neely had indeed violated ethics rules by here we go somehow influencing the judiciary -  “independence, integrity, and impartiality.” 

They also stated she failed to “perform all duties of judicial office fairly and impartially,” and “manifest[ing] bias” on the basis of sexual orientation. Yet she fairly gave warning of the conflict of interest, showing no bias but excluding herself because of a genuine religious conflict between two sets of laws -God's law and State Laws. 

It then analyzed Neely’s claims under strict scrutiny to determine whether they violated her freedom of speech or free exercise of religion. 

But to survive that test, the sanction must be “narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.” The court found that “preserving public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary” qualifies as a compelling state interest. But this is a poor interpretation, in that the public confidence in the integrity of this judge was genuinely upheld by most commonsense people, excluding homosexual zealots who continue to use the courts for their cause at the expense of anybody who gets in their way. Second, it violates the religious conscience when they are forces by penalty or censure to violate historic commonsense Biblical law held by many citizens of the USA.

What this decision does do is that it show the judiciary in the eyes of normal families, Christians and others religious - have lost all public support. They saw Obama forcing legislation through states being overuled and homosexuals celebrating. The judiciary is in taters.

This decision constitutes a backward, bully approach by the Federal Government on ordinary people with normal religious views on the sin of homosexuality. 

Indeed, the ruling would not be particularly noteworthy were it not for the commonsense and wise dissent defending Neely’s right to withdraw herself from marrying immoral homosexual couples. 

The two dissenters, Justices Keith G. Kautz and Michael K. Davis, declared that the court had created “a religious test for who may serve as a judge in Wyoming.” They insisted that the First Amendment, as well as the Wyoming constitution, guarantee Neely the right to discriminate against gay couples in her capacity as a judge. And, they correctly concluded that same-sex couples whom Neely turns away should simply find another judge to marry them: