PORTLAND, Oregon, September 15, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Citing his religious freedom, another Oregon judge has refused to solemnize homosexual “marriages.”
Washington County Judge Thomas Kohl told The Oregonian, “Last summer for personal faith-based reasons, I decided to not perform weddings as a judge.”
Under Oregon state law, judges may but are not required to officiate weddings. They need not give a reason.
Kohl is known for speaking about his Christian faith in court. When asked why the ACLU hasn't sued him, Kohl replied, “God's protecting us right now … and I thank Him for that.”
He presides over Drug Court, an intensive second-chance treatment program he himself started in 2005 to change the lives of addicts. Speaking at Sonrise Church in 2013, he shared the joy he feels when a drug court participant speaks of God at graduation. “I love it when Jesus' name is mentioned in a state courtroom,” he said. “It's so cool.”
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Kohl's daughter Megan was brutally murdered in 2006, at only 21 years of age. Kohl eventually wrote a book, Losing Megan: Finding Hope, Comfort and Forgiveness in the Midst of Murder, which shares how his faith not only got him through the heartache, but also enabled him to forgive Megan's killer.
When a father shared in court that he would never forgive his son's killer, Kohl responded that he had been able to forgive his daughter's murderer. “That was only possible through the power and presence of Jesus Christ in my life,” he said.
Once, before pronouncing sentence, Kohl told a defendant that no sin was unforgivable, except for the sin of rejecting God. He encouraged the man to repent. “One of these days, you're going to die,” Kohl said. “You're either going to go to heaven or hell for eternity, and that's a long, long time.”
Kohl, a former city attorney, has been serving as a judge since 1997, when he was appointed by Governor John Kitzhaber. He was a presiding judge from 2006-2010 and served as president of the Oregon Circuit Court Judges' Association from 2010-2011.
At least 16 Oregon judges have stopped performing weddings. Marion County's Vance Day was the first Oregon judge to announce that he would not marry homosexuals because of his Christian faith. He referred homosexual couples to other judges who were willing to officiate gay “weddings.”
After saying he would not marry gays, Day came under intense opposition and is now under an ethics investigation by the Oregon judicial commission.
Day said the ethics review violates his “freedom of speech, association and free exercise of religion guaranteed under the U.S. and Oregon constitutions.”
The mainstream media picked up and heavily publicized a rumor that Judge Day had a picture of Hitler on display. On Tuesday, Day explained that the picture was part of a World War II veterans' memorabilia display put up last summer to honor a local doctor who served in the war. The display is surrounded by American veterans' memorabilia.
Day's spokesman, Patrick Korten, explained, “We went to war against Hitler. His picture was there. It was not admiringly. It was him as the epitome of the enemy that we went to fight against.”
Jay Michaelson of The Daily Beast, himself gay and in a homosexual “marriage” with another man, summarized, “Progressives have launched a hit job against Judge Vance Day in apparent retaliation for his stance on same-sex marriage.” He called the ethics investigation “dirty tricks” and admitted that the commission is merely “cook[ing] up a dozen pretexts to sanction him or remove him from office.”
The American Civil Liberties Union said Day's refusal to preside over weddings is legal but raises questions about his impartiality. An ACLU spokesman said that Day's actions “look like state-sanctioned discrimination.”
Day told the Associated Press, “It appears that the commission has thrown everything in but the kitchen sink. The clear issue that they're after me on is that I had stopped doing weddings because I have a firmly held religious conviction.”
Day faces a hearing November 9. If he is found guilty, the case will go to the state Supreme Court.
