Conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brian Hagedorn, an associate judge on the state's Second District Court of Appeals, is pushing back strongly against weeks of negative coverage of his old blog posts and a Christian school he helped found, calling the attacks "anti-Christian" in nature.
"Do you believe that you're being targeted specifically because you're an evangelical Christian," Dan O'Donnell asked during an interview Wednesday morning.
"Yes," Hagedorn replied. "It's clear. There absolutely has been a double standard applied and you can tell because we've seen this around the country. This is the same thing they've done to judicial nominees nationally: 'Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Knights of Columbus?'"
Late last year, Democratic Senators Maizie Hirono and Kamala Harris voiced their concerns about attorney Brian Buescher's nomination to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska over his membership in the Christian organization.
In Wisconsin, Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin objected to the nomination of Gordon Giampietro over comments on the Supreme Court's gay marriage decision Giampietro made in a radio interview. A practicing Catholic, Giampietro believes Baldwin objected to his nomination, which President Trump has withdrawn, because of his faith.
"This is what we're seeing all across the country," Hagedorn said. "It's not just evangelical Christians. I think it's even broader than that. It's an effort to stamp out people of faith from public life that in itself is pernicious and wrong."
Listen to Hagedorn's complete interview in which he explains his old blog posts and pledges to uphold the Constitution and the Rule of Law: