Jonathan Saenz - President, Texas Values Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seven, twenty two, our time here on Houston's Morning News.
All right, so does a Texas judges to state judge
have freedom of religion the ability to refuse a gay
couple when they want to be married by you because
it's against your religion. Well, the Supreme Court of Texas
is taking that on here to give us his opinion,

(00:21):
Jonathan Science, President of Texas Values. What do you think, Jonathan, Well,
good morning. This is an open and shutcase. I mean, look,
this has been debated in the legislature before. As you know,
the Texas legislature just wrapped up their business on Monday,
the twenty twenty five state legislative session, and I was
in the courtroom at the Texas Supreme Court when this

(00:41):
case was argued, and it was more of a preliminary matter.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
At that time. But there's no question that.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Our religious freedom laws make it clear that you cannot
be forced to violate your conscience because someone wants to
have the same sex ceremony or wedding ceremony, and you
can't be forced have to perform these Why because there
are people all over the state that are willing to
perform this ceremony. There's no reason that you have to

(01:09):
force some individual judge to perform your own same sex
ceremony or wedding. But that's what some people want to do.
They are not satisfied with the freedom for them to
be able to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
They want to force specific judges to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
And why because that's how some people see this issue.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
They see it as a weapon.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
They want to make you be involved in something that
is really about their life and not ours. And you
don't give up the right, the religious freedom right, just
because you work in a role like a judge. We
treat county clerks the same way. We have a state
law that's very clear. County clerks cannot be forced to
sign marriage certificates or applications. Someone else in the office

(01:53):
or somebody else in the county can provide that service.
You can't force one individual to do that. I'm not constitutional.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Well, it's it's more about a political statement for these people.
It's not about wanting a particular judge to marry them
because they want their judge to marry them. It's because
they know their judge doesn't want to have to do it,
and they want to force them to do it.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
That's right, I mean, that's what's going on.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
And so look, I've worked on religious cases, religious freedom
cases for twenty years. You know, every religious freedom law
that's been passed in the past twenty years, I've been
a part of helping, including you know, this Ten Commandments
law that's going in place for our public schools in
Texas that's going to be signed by Governor Abbott very soon.
But also the law that made it clear that you
can't force county clerks to be involved in the marriage

(02:36):
certificate process. This is no different. And you know, we
got an all Republican Texas Supreme Court. I think this
is going to be very easy for them, but I
do think it's important for us to get this precedent,
this decision in place, because look, you see there's two
judges that are dealing with this, and to me, it
looks like, you know, they're chasing her around. One of

(02:56):
the judges, Judge Hensley, and others. They keep trying to
find ways, you know, to try to make her life difficult.
And you know, the Judicial Conduct Commissioner Dustry conduct back
to way, they dropped the warning and sort of reprimand
against her when she started winning. Some phases, we're going

(03:17):
to weigh into this court case again as it moves
through the process. But I do think it's very important
and I do think this is something that maybe people
on the right and left could agree on and say, yeah, look,
you shouldn't have to force some individual judge. There are
other people to do it that should be satisfactory. But
I invite people to go to our website TX values

(03:37):
dot org so you can get updated on some of
the newest religious freedom laws that have passed this year
and years before.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
There is a point of interest on this one and
real quickly if you would, John think as we're out tight.
Here is her official title. She's but Glenning County Justice
of the Peace is in Texas. Is there a difference
between the Justice of the Peace and a judge.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
No, it's just the level of judge. I mean, that's
you know, and so justice of the piece. Sometimes they'll
they'll do a lot of variety of different things where
the judge is sort of what we think of well,
sometimes being a specialized role in a court like family
court or civil court or criminal court, just as the
piece is usually just smaller matters like this, maybe being
involved in marriage ceremonies and things of that nature. But

(04:19):
they're still accountable to the Code of Judicial Conduct, just
like I am as a lawyer. That's something that you
know I have to follow, yeah, as well, and that
you know they want people to not be judges just
because they don't want to perform a same sex marriage.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
That that's not Texas, that's not America.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
All right, duties are different, but the rules are the same,
is what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
All Right, Thank you, sir, appreciated. Jonathan Science, President of
Texas Values