By Jorge Gomez
First Liberty Institute
The Biden administration keeps putting forth judicial nominees who hold extreme views and espouse outlandish legal theories.
Noel Wise—nominated for a federal district court in California—argues that laws that lay out a clear difference between two genders supposedly violate “separation of Church and State.”
In 2017, Wise published an article for Time magazine titled “Gender Laws Are at Odds with Science.” She wrote that “legislators blur the lines of church and state” when they “enact laws that permit or prohibit conduct based on biologic gender as only male or female.”
She argued that thinking about gender as only “two tidy boxes” makes it “virtually impossible for judges to consistently apply a law that permits or prohibits conduct based on whether someone is a man or a woman.”
During her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Wise faced intense questions from senators regarding her controversial statements.
“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,” Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said.
“The idea that laws based on the distinction between male and female are in violation of Church and State is insane—totally insane,” Hawley added. “I can’t believe you have been nominated.”
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
Wise’s nomination also raises concerns about whether religious Americans would be treated fairly in her courtroom. Wise wrote an article for The Atlantic in 2020 criticizing the race, gender and religious identity of judicial nominees during the Trump administration. Noel said it was a problem that many nominees were “White men” who “were raised or currently identify as Christian.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham made it clear he opposed Wise’s nomination. The South Carolina senator wasn’t convinced when Wise denied that she’d made a political statement in her 2020 Atlantic piece.
“You’re a zealous advocate who wants to be a judge and an advocate at the same time,” Graham said. “You ought to get into politics and not be promoted as a judge.”
With all of the work Biden’s judicial nominee Noel Wise did to push her political agenda while serving on the bench, she ought to get into politics, not get promoted. pic.twitter.com/ug9KKgJK9R
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) July 10, 2024
Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana also blasted Wise for rejecting the idea that people are either male or female.
Noel Wise rejects the idea that people are either male or female. She says that “sex has countless natural permutations.”
Pres. Biden wants to give her a lifetime perch on the federal bench.
What could go wrong? pic.twitter.com/ie2s8nqnsX
— John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) July 10, 2024
Nominees who criticize the religious identity of others in news articles are more likely to engage in religious discrimination in courtrooms. And judicial candidates who make specious claims about the First Amendment in magazines may do the same in judicial opinions.
Simply put, many Biden nominees do not inspire confidence that they’ll be impartial arbiters of the law or treat all Americans equally. Instead, their records suggest they could be hostile to religious liberty and unconstitutionally advance their own policy agendas from the federal bench.
