The utter hypocrisy of America's left never ceases to amaze me. It was this hypocrisy that drove me to file a federal civil rights claim against the government bureaucrats who ran me through one heck of a gauntlet during my bid to be licensed as an Indiana attorney.
On Groundhog Day my search for justice suffered yet another setback. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Theresa Springmann's decision that I had no federal case to bring. Not because I cannot make a claim under the First Amendment, but because any claim that I can make could be heard only by the Indiana Supreme Court — the very court that I allege to have conspired against me.
I entered the federal court on Dec. 8, 2009, alleging that bureaucrats of the Indiana judiciary and their agents acted out of “collusion and out of biases, invidious discriminatory intent and animus” when they targeted me for law license denial “because of [my] pro-life beliefs arising out of [my] traditional Christian worldview and constitutional, conservative political perspective.”
The past is prologue in my situation: I was licensed to practice law by the State of Kansas in 1996. Montana certified me for good moral character and mental fitness in the same year. Five years later I was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). Six years after that the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) certified me as to good moral character and mental fitness to practice law for all states who use that apolitical and professional licensing authority. (Indiana is one of the few states that does not use the NCBE, preferring to instead maintain its “old boy network.”)
In 2006, the State of Missouri certified me as possessing the requisite good moral character and mental fitness to practice law. More to the point, I had then been practicing law for 11 years, winning First and Fourteenth Amendment cases in federal appellate courts the nation over and serving as the chief of the Kansas Consumer Protection and Antitrust Division under Attorney General Phil Kline.
Enter 2008 and my return to the great state of Indiana after a 17-year absence. I was remanded to the Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program — a substance abuse/mental health unit — due to my civil disobedience some 18 years earlier. I was questioned about my commitment to my faith, my political views and my opinion on the abortion industry, psychotherapy and biblical passages among other more mundane and esoteric issues.
These intrusive official inquiries brought on a predictable result from this seasoned constitutional litigator and lifelong champion of First Amendment freedoms. The Indiana judicial system resisted and resented my requests for an independent, apolitical review of my bar application processing and cried foul when I documented inquires focused upon my views, my beliefs, my religion and my politics. All are detailed in a sworn affidavit that I have now filed with numerous court systems.
Fifty years ago it was the left who were being shut out of law licensure. Theological inquiries were often used to uncover the Marxists, who refused to affirm the existence of a Law Giver. The SCOTUS put an end to such lines of questions with its 1971 Baird v. Arizona decision, mandating that “views and beliefs are immune from bar association inquisitions designed to lay a foundation for barring an applicant from the practice of law.”
Yet views and beliefs were front and center in the processing of my license. I am not licensed to practice law in the Indiana courts this day because I hold to the legal philosophy of our Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., the Catholic bishops and most all Americans.
Here is the reason the Indiana authorities gave, at the end of two years of processing, to deny me a license and demand that I not even ask for one again for five years:
“He testified [as] to his obligation to disobey laws that contradicted his religious beliefs under certain circumstances. [He further] indicated that he would not obey certain court orders and judgments that he believed to be unjust. [It is the policy of the Indiana court] that a member of the Indiana bar must obey Indiana law and federal law, even when doing so violates an attorney's conscience, and that an avowed willingness not to do so is disqualifying.”
In other words, unlike a Marxist, I pledge my ultimate allegiance to the power even higher than the state. And that simply cannot be tolerated, no matter how well I practiced law on my Kansas license from 1996-2008.
Despite the Baird decision's command that religion and politics not be the gravamen for bar denial, on Feb. 2 the federal appellate court setting over Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin (and directly under the SCOTUS) determined, in Pilate-like fashion, that I had no constitutional concerns that could be heard by the federal court. I now have the choice to end my legal struggle against the utter hypocrisy of the left or to soldier on against very long odds with almost no resources at hand.
I have drawn inspiration from our nation's founders most all of my life. The inspiration that seems to best apply in this situation is, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” Prayers for safe harbor and a just end are much appreciated.
