Breaking News: Court candidate founded a Christian school that required teachers and students to be Christian

By GSM News Staff

Madison, Wis., February 15, 2019 -- Local experts and Madison area residents alike are expressing shock at learning that Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brian Hagedorn, a committed Christian, helped to found a Christian school that actually requires teachers and students to be Christian.

Image from https://www.judgehagedorn.com/

According to a Wisconsin State Journal exclusive, Hagedorn and his wife Christina helped to found Augustine Academy, a private K-8 school in Waukesha County in 2016. The school's code of personal conduct bans "immoral sexual activity" by teachers, staff, parents and students, which it defines as "any form of touching or nudity for the purpose of evoking sexual arousal apart from the context of marriage between one man and one woman."

Tyler Hendricks, the spokesman for Hagedorn's opponent, suggested that Hagedorn's radical beliefs may influence his judicial decisions. "Wisconsinites will need to decide whether Brian Hagedorn can set aside his personal partisan views and be a fair, impartial judge on our state's highest court," he said.

Wilber Wilberson, of Madison, said she was shocked by the report. "Is someone with a point of view that is different from mine even allowed to run for public office?" she asked. "How could he possibly be an impartial judge if he has strong opinions that are different from my strong opinions?"

UW-Madison political scientist Dr. Scott Scottie said that even if Hagedorn can set aside his beliefs, the candidate's political philosophy is troubling. Hagedorn is a constitutional originalist, or textualist, Dr. Scottie said, a judicial philosophy holding that the Constitution should be interpreted as originally written. So even if Hagedorn doesn't let his own Christian beliefs influence his decisions, Dr. Scottie argued, he may inadvertently let the Founders' Christian beliefs do so.

"This is very dangerous," Dr. Scottie said. "We need to have justices who will ensure that the Constitution is interpreted according to the prevailing opinion, and the Founders' views on marriage, for example, or abortion, or pretty much any of these hot-button social issues are decidedly not the prevailing views here in Madison."

Martha Marthowski, also of Madison, said the solution is to pass a law banning public officials from having any opinions of their own at all. "We simply can't have people with beliefs in public office right now," she said. "With so many unenlightened rubes and rednecks still against gay marriage outside of our enlightened Madison enclave, it's just too dangerous."