Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, chastised a judicial nominee under the Biden administration for a 2017 article that decried “bathroom bills.”
During a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for three women President Joe Biden had nominated to be federal judges, Hawley questioned Noel Wise. Hawley read an article from a 2017 Time magazine article by Wise about the passing of H.B. 2, a bill in North Carolina requiring people to use restrooms that correspond to their biological sex. Wise claimed in the article that the judicial branch was burdened “impossibly” by so-called “bathroom bills.”
“What’s this comment at the end of your article about ‘judges are obligated to see the world through a secular lens… When legislators blur the lines of church and state and enact laws that permit or prohibit conduct based on biologic[al] gender as only male or female… they place an impossible burden on our judiciary,’ what’s that mean?” Hawley asked. “That distinctions between male and female are a violation of church and state?”
Watch:
This crazy judicial nominee thinks saying women and men are different is a First Amendment violation! Insane pic.twitter.com/GycO579Yt7
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 10, 2024
Judges have to be able to administer these laws,” Wise responded. “If the direction, and I have to tell you, I work really hard to get it right, to do exactly what Congress tells me to do and the legislature tells me to do, and as a result, if a doctor finds it difficult to identify at the moment of birth for certain children-,” causing Hawley to interject and ask, “Is a law that distinguishes between male and female a violation of church and state?”
“You say ‘When legislators blur the lines of church and state and enact laws that permit or prohibit conduct based on biologic[al] gender as only male or female… they place an impossible burden on the judiciary,” Hawley continued. “So this is a First Amendment violation?”
“When you are telling judges that in order to-,” Wise said before Hawley cut in, saying, “I’m not telling you anything. I’m reading you your comments and asking you if you are still committed to them, and it sounds like you are.”
“I have to tell you, I think these positions are insane,” Hawley said. “I think that the idea laws based on the distinction between male and female are a violation of church and state is insane. Totally insane. I think the idea that laws that would say women’s locker rooms are protected from biological men, that those are impermissible, that’s insane, but that’s what you say in this article. You’re going to have to recuse yourself from a lot of cases, aren’t you?”
