(LifeSiteNews) — A Texas judge penalized for refusing to officiate homosexual “marriages” has won a combined $640,000 in damages and legal fees in a final judgement determining that her rights were violated under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
In 2019, McLennan County Justice of the Peace Dianne Hensley received a public warning from the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct for recusing herself from conducting homosexual “weddings” on the grounds that her stand “cas(t) doubt on her capacity to act impartially.” She filed a lawsuit alleging infringement of her free exercise of religion under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Hensley’s case was dismissed in 2021 but revived in 2024 by the Texas Supreme Court, which found that she had “clearly sufficient” grounds to sue. The judicial commission eventually withdrew the sanctions against her, and last October the state’s highest court issued an update to the state’s judicial code of conduct to clarify that “It is not a violation of these canons for a judge to publicly refrain from performing a wedding ceremony based upon a sincerely held religious belief.”
“Judge Hensley treated them (the same-sex couple she turned down) respectfully,” now-Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock has previously written. “They went about their lives. Judge Hensley went back to work, her Christian conscience clean, her knees bent only to her God.”
On June 19, First Liberty Institute announced that the District Court of Travis County has issued its final judgment in favor of Hensley, awarding her $10,000 in compensatory damages (the maximum allowed by the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act) plus $630,000 in attorney’s fees. The judgment also permanently bars the commission from “investigating, sanctioning, or disciplining Judge Hensley over her refusal to officiate at same sex weddings on account of her religious beliefs.”
“Judge Hensley always adhered to the law and the legal guidance provided by the Attorney General of Texas,” said First Liberty attorney Hiram Sasser. “We are grateful that this case has concluded and that Judge Hensley was vindicated.”
The case is just one of many instances of attempts to coerce recognition of and/or participation in homosexual “marriages” ever since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which forced all fifty states to recognize homosexual unions as marriages. Undoing Obergefell has long been a goal of social conservatives and constitutional textualists and originalists, but remains an uphill battle.
Three of the current sitting justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and conservatives Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — dissented from Obergefell. The latter two are considered reliable votes to overturn if the chance arises, given statements both have made in the years since. But it is less certain how Roberts and the Court’s three more recent Republican appointees would rule, given past statements about deferring to precedent and their mixed records on cases important to conservatives. In November 2025, the Court declined to hear a case from former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis that could have reconsidered Obergefell.
Further, as a practical matter, even if the Supreme Court reversed Obergefell, recognition of homosexual “marriage” would still be mandatory nationwide, thanks to former President Joe Biden signing the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act” in 2023. Thirty-two states still have duly-enacted bans on homosexual “marriage” on the books, according to World Population Review, all of which have been blocked from enforcement since Obergefell. Only 18 states plus the District of Columbia have no ban in place.
At least half a dozen states have adopted resolutions urging the nation’s highest court to reverse Obergefell. They have no legal force nor can they begin any legal battle that could eventually put the issue back before the nation’s highest court, but they raise awareness of an issue that, while long since declared “settled” by the establishments of both parties, remains a major concern to conservative Christians and affront to Biblical morality.
As LifeSiteNews’s Doug Mainwaring wrote in January, a “massive coalition of conservative leaders and organizations has now banded together under the banner of ‘Greater Than,’ a not-so-thinly veiled swipe at the chief proponent of homosexual ‘marriage,’ the LGBTQ+ Washington powerhouse lobbying organization, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), whose logo is an equal sign. The message is clear: Children’s rights must be greater than those of adults. It’s hard to imagine anyone not getting behind this movement.”