“She was in a government courtroom, dressed in a judicial robe, with all the imprimatur of the state … preaching to someone who was quite literally a captive audience,” Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-presidents of FFRF, wrote in the complaint. “Here, compassion crossed the line into coercion.”
“She is a woman of remarkable faith. And I admire and appreciate the fact that she doesn’t limit her faith to Sunday morning,” said the Rev. Frederick Haynes, senior pastor at Dallas’ Friendship-West Baptist Church. “But I preferred her to do that in private setting. That was very jarring and unsettling.”
In their complaint, Barker and Gaylor also fault the judge for “instructing the convicted criminal on how to read the Bible and which passages to pay attention to, and witnessing to that convicted murderer.”
“These proselytizing actions overstepped judicial authority, were inappropriate and were unconstitutional,” they wrote.
“FFRF is protesting Judge Kemp rather than joining the rest of the nation celebrating the compassion and mercy Judge Kemp demonstrated,” Hiram Sasser, its general counsel, said in a statement. “We should all be thankful the law allows Judge Kemp’s actions and we stand with her and will gladly lead the charge in defending her noble and legal actions.”
“I have no problem with her personal gesture and as a Christian find it to be a beautiful witness,” he said. But what Kemp did was inappropriate given the context of the moment, Mason said.
“No one should feel as if the government is favoring one religion over another,” he said. “Elected officials should be neutral toward religion. Not hostile and not advancing a religion.”
“I think her humanity overwhelmed her in the moment,” he said. “And that’s totally understandable and in many ways commendable.”
Sasser, of the First Liberty Institute, told The Dallas Morning News that the state judicial commission “could decide to go crazy and attack this judge for that.”
“I would defend any judge handing any holy text to anybody in an effort to help them be a better person,” he said.
And he said there is adequate historical precedent for Bibles being used or given to people being sentenced “for purposes of their edification,” although this doesn’t typically happen in Dallas County state court.
And she said it’s difficult to sue over ceremonial language that’s used to open court sessions, such as “God save the United States and this Honorable Court,” which a bailiff usually utters after asking attendees to bow their heads.
“If it’s done for everyone who stands before her, then I feel more comfortable.”
Was it right for judge in Amber Guyger case to talk religion and give her a Bible?
