Is Judge N Randy Smith a Mormon?

by Samuel Chu and Laura Compton

So is Judge Smith a Mormon?

The answer – I don’t know and it is none of my damn business.

Almost immediately after the announcement of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel reviewing the Prop 8 challenge, questions popped up regarding the religious background of one of the three judges named.  The speculations around Judge Norman Randy Smith stemmed from the fact that Smith went to Brigham Young University for both his undergraduate and law school education.

A friend of California Faith for Equality, Laura Compton, who is herself Mormon and heads the website MormonsforMarriage.org shares her thoughts:

I think that anyone crying foul/unfair due to a judge’s religious views makes the same amount of sense as crying foul/unfair because of a judge’s orientation.  Just as it was absurd to question Judge Walker’s ruling because he’s not straight, it is absurd to question the ability of any judge based solely on his/her religious beliefs.

Any judge worth his salt knows better than to judge civil law by the tenets of the Book of Mormon/Bible rather than by the requirements of the Constitution. It’s not like this is the first time they will have been asked to review a sticky moral-political issue, and I’m sure that if they feel they cannot sit in judgment without a conflict of interest they will step down and let another judge sit on in their stead.

Would we question a judge’s ability to hear the case if she were Catholic? Orthodox Jew? Southern Baptist?  Unitarian? Atheist?  What about if he’s quoting Star Trek in his judicial opinions (as happened recently in Texas)?

If N. Randy Smith is Mormon, which seems likely given his degree from BYU’s law school, and if the LGBT community raises a fuss because he’s on the case, all they will do is feed the monster of misunderstanding that’s grown from the Prop 8 fight.  You won’t make the monster go away by feeding it.  You make it go away by starving it.  Examine Smith’s judicial record, not his religious record.

Harry Reid and Glenn Beck and Steve Young are all Mormons – there’s a pretty broad spectrum of belief and practice within the religion and usually just because a judge is religious doesn’t mean religion is the primary motivating factor in writing judicial decisions.

Laura Compton

Webmaster, MormonsforMarriage.org