Judge Who Refused to Marry Gay Couples Suspended in Oregon

A judge in Oregon who refused to marry gay couples has been suspended by the state Supreme Court for three years without pay, the longest suspension in that court’s history. 

The Supreme Court upheld a prior decision by the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability that Marion County Circuit Judge Vance Day refused to marry gay couples and engaged in other misconduct while serving on the bench, NBC News reported.

Day had his staff screen couples who wanted to marry and report that Day was unavailable if the couples were of the same sex, NBC News reported. The Supreme Court found that Day’s actions “willfully manifested to his staff a bias against same-sex couples that undermined public trust in a fair and impartial judiciary.”

“A judge is a public official, not a priest, and is required to perform the duties of the office without bias or prejudice,” Lambda Legal attorney Ethan Rice said in a statement. Rice’s group supports LGBTQ civil rights and submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, NBC News reported. 

The court did not rule on the constitutionality of Day’s defense of his actions. But Lambda Legal law and policy director Jenny C. Pizer said it is not unusual when courts don’t rule on constitutionality if they can rule on other grounds, NBC reported. 

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