Jan Mickelson claimed Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg should have recused themselves from the Supreme Court case on same-sex marriage not only because they had officiated same-sex weddings prior to the case's decision, but because they are also “liberal Jews.”
Discussing June's Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on his September 9 show, Mickelson repeated the debunked notion that the two justices should have recused themselves from the case -- a call that originated with the anti-gay hate group, American Family Association, and was picked up by Fox News host Bill O'Reilly -- because they had officiated at same-sex weddings and are “disingenuous,” “biased,” “liberal Jews” with a “religious motivation” (emphasis added):
JAN MICKELSON: I know this is a story that we were just talking about, is in the background, but I agree with Pastor Demastus. Our culture is in the process of being picked apart by activists who are just fundamentally broken, damaged people. And also by disingenuous judges and disingenuous lawyers. The case to which I refer: Judge Roberts should have required two of the members of the Supreme Court to recuse themselves, Kagan and Ginsburg, because both of them had literally presided over same-gender weddings previous to the ruling. In any other kind of thing, if they-- a vested emotional interest and a vested religious interest in their part, would have caused them to have been required to recuse themselves. If they had a monetary interest in the outcome of a court case, they would have been required to recuse themselves. In this case, they had a religious motivation for moving forward and conducting same-gender marriage: they are both liberal Jews. No, I'm not saying anything bad, this is a correct assessment of their world view.
Why is it if Christians use their religion to resist same-gender marriage -- “Well they're the Taliban, dude” -- well then, why is it that if people with different religions do exactly the same thing, they are exempt from the same criticism? Well, I am not going to exempt them. They are biased, they had legal bias. They should not have been in a position to decide. They should have recused themselves. Roberts should have required it. And if they were both gone, that ruling would not have advanced the hoax of same-gender marriage because they wouldn't have had the votes. It's a totally safe and useless gesture. When his authority meant something, he didn't use it. It was a contrivance and a scam, just like the court shopping down in Kentucky that found a gay rights activist to decide over the lady that eventually got tossed into jail for refusing to issue a bogus marriage license.
Earlier this week prominent Midwestern grocery chain Hy-Vee, a major sponsor of Mickelson's employer, WHO Radio, announced that it no longer wanted its promotional message played during his broadcasts from Hy-Vee Studio. However, Hy-Vee's ads were still running as of September 9 on the livestream of Mickelson's show carried by iHeartMedia, corporate owners of WHO radio.* Mickelson was widely criticized in August for proposing an immigration plan that would make undocumented immigrants who don't leave Iowa “property of the state,” and other sponsors are reportedly also reconsidering their ties to the embattled host. Meanwhile, Mickelson has continued to play host to GOP 2016 presidential candidates -- including Rand Paul, Scott Walker, and Bobby Jindal, all of whom appeared on his show this week, after these comments about the justices were made.
*UPDATE: After publishing, Hy-Vee contacted Media Matters and stated any ads still running on Mickelson's show are a scheduling mistake. The language in this post has been updated to reflect Hy-Vee's reiterated statement that “We will continue our overall sponsorship with WHO Radio. And we will continue to own the naming rights to the studio, which is governed by a legal contract that does not specify the sponsoring of Mickelson's show.”