{"id":136726,"date":"2026-06-24T08:11:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T12:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cablemanpro.com\/wallstreetpr\/judge-awarded-640k-after-refusing-to-officiate-same-sex-weddings-136726"},"modified":"2026-06-24T08:11:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T12:11:01","slug":"judge-awarded-640k-after-refusing-to-officiate-same-sex-weddings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cablemanpro.com\/wallstreetpr\/judge-awarded-640k-after-refusing-to-officiate-same-sex-weddings-136726","title":{"rendered":"Judge awarded $640K after refusing to officiate same-sex weddings"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/category\/politics\/judiciary\/federal-courts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A court<\/a> has awarded a Texas justice of the peace more than $640,000 after she was disciplined for declining to officiate <a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/media\/louisville-pay-800k-after-christian-photographer-beats-law-forcing-her-shoot-same-sex-weddings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">same-sex weddings<\/a> because of her religious beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a great victory for people of faith. It&#8217;s important for people of faith to be able to decline to participate in things that they find that are incompatible with their religious faith,&#8221; Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute, told Fox News Digital Tuesday in an interview.<\/p>\n<p>First Liberty Institute <a href=\"https:\/\/firstliberty.org\/media\/court-enters-final-judgment-in-favor-of-waco-judge-who-refused-to-perform-same-sex-weddings-awarding-10000-in-damages-and-630000-in-attorneys-fees\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced Friday<\/a> that Judge Dianne Hensley will receive $10,000 in damages after a court found that <a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/category\/first-amendment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">her religious freedom rights<\/a> were violated under Texas law.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/media\/louisville-pay-800k-after-christian-photographer-beats-law-forcing-her-shoot-same-sex-weddings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>LOUISVILLE TO PAY $800K AFTER CHRISTIAN PHOTOGRAPHER BEATS LAW FORCING HER TO SHOOT SAME-SEX WEDDINGS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The District Court of Travis County also ordered the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to pay approximately $630,000 in attorneys&#8217; fees incurred by Hensley, who was represented by First Liberty Institute and attorney Jonathan F. Mitchell.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think one of the great things about how Judge Hensley handled things here is that she not only was exercising a religious faith to say, \u2018Hey, look, I can do some marriages, but not others,\u2019 but she was also being a good neighbor. She had a referral system in place for people whose weddings she could not perform,&#8221; Sasser said.<\/p>\n<p>According to First Liberty, Hensley faced disciplinary action after choosing not to officiate same-sex weddings <a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/category\/us\/religion\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">because of her Christian faith<\/a>. Sasser said Hensley had established a referral system to ensure couples could still obtain wedding services from another officiant without additional cost or delay.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/media\/louisville-pay-800k-after-christian-photographer-beats-law-forcing-her-shoot-same-sex-weddings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>LOUISVILLE TO PAY $800K AFTER CHRISTIAN PHOTOGRAPHER BEATS LAW FORCING HER TO SHOOT SAME-SEX WEDDINGS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sasser said that Hensley first received pushback from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They gave her a warning that if she continued to do any kind of weddings without performing same-sex weddings that they would, you know, take it to the next level and continue the punishment against her, which, you know, there&#8217;s lots of different actions that they could have taken,&#8221; Sasser said. &#8220;So it started off with the warning, and that&#8217;s and that&#8217;s what we were fighting for, fighting for her right to be able to provide a good public service for folks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sasser noted that the Texas Supreme Court has amended the rules to <a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/category\/controversies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">allow for religious accommodation<\/a>, and added that &#8220;the state legislature has also undertaken to reform the actual membership and makeup of the commission so that, hopefully, we won&#8217;t have to kind of know one will ever have to face this kind of a thing again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.com\/media\/louisville-pay-800k-after-christian-photographer-beats-law-forcing-her-shoot-same-sex-weddings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>LOUISVILLE TO PAY $800K AFTER CHRISTIAN PHOTOGRAPHER BEATS LAW FORCING HER TO SHOOT SAME-SEX WEDDINGS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a statement to Fox News Digital, Hensley said, &#8220;All I wanted to do was serve our community and maintain my faith commitments. I am thankful the law prevailed after eight long years, and we restored religious liberty to the land.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The State Commission on Judicial Conduct declined to comment to Fox News Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/judge-awarded-640k-refusing-officiate-same-sex-weddings\">Source &#8211; https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/judge-awarded-640k-refusing-officiate-same-sex-weddings <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A court has awarded a Texas justice of the peace more than $640,000 after she was disciplined for declining to officiate same-sex weddings because of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_2902945987_2902945987":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[16563],"tags":[],"stock_ticker":[],"class_list":["post-136726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - 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