In 2019, Waco, Texas Justice of the Peace Dianne Hensley received an official “public warning” from the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct for refusing to officiate weddings for same-sex couples.
The warning, while public, did not come with any fine nor any severe sanctions or censure, as NCRM reported at the time, yet Judge Hensley sued.
She retained a far-right wing anti-LGBTQ Christian activist group with ties to Trump, First Liberty Institute, to represent her in her $10,000 lawsuit for damages.
Three years later, almost to the day of her warning, a Texas bipartisan appeals court panel in Austin ruled against her. “She failed to make her case, the three-member panel wrote,” The Dallas Morning News reported.