By Bob Allen
A Texas judge had no right to sentence a man to marriage and court-ordered Bible study, a Washington-based church-state watchdog group said Aug. 10.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State attorneys wrote Smith County Judge Randall Lee Rogers after a local television station reported that he ordered a 20-year-old defendant to marry his 19-year-old girlfriend and write out Bible verses or spend 15 days in jail for assault.
According to ABC affiliate KLTV in Tyler, Texas, during his sentencing for getting into a fight with girlfriend Elizabeth Jaynes’ ex-boyfriend, Judge Rogers asked defendant Josten Bundy, “Is she worth it?”
The judge later asked Bundy if he was married to Jaynes and then added, “You know, as a part of my probation, you’re going to have to marry her … within 30 days.”
The couple said they would have preferred a more formal wedding, but Bundy feared if he served two weeks in jail he might lose his job. So they applied for a marriage license and scheduled a ceremony before a justice of the peace.
Americans United Executive Director Barry Lynn described the incident as “outrageous and unconstitutional.”
“Judge Rogers seems to think he’s running a combination Sunday school and relationship counseling service,” Lynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, said in a press release. “He needs to get back to dispensing secular law.”
In their letter, AU lawyers asked the judge to “refrain from imposing conditions requiring religious activity (including Bible reading or the writing of Bible verses) or conditions relating to fundamental privacy interests such as marriage,” and to “rescind any such requirements from existing orders.”
AU said as government officials, judges cannot coerce parties to engage in religious activities, and ordering citizens to marry violates a right to privacy recognized under the 14th Amendment.
“All citizens, including those convicted of crimes, have the right to decide whether and when to get married,” the letter said. “And under the Constitution, they are entitled to make that decision without the threat of imprisonment.”
AU attorneys requested a reply within 30 days.