Appeals Court Refuses To Order Recusal of Fundamentalist Christian Judge

In Ex parte Tiara Brooke Lycans, (AL App., July 28, 2017), an Alabama appellate court refused to issue a writ of mandamus ordering a trial judge who also serves as a preacher of a fundamentalist Christian church to recuse himself in a divorce action in which the wife, a lesbian, feared bias in the judge's custody ruling.  The court said in part:

Judge Bell's expressed belief that homosexual relationships and marriage are contrary to God's law, ... that God's law takes precedence over man-made law, and his placing paramount importance on the moral environment in which a child will live ... would tend to indicate to a reasonable person that a reasonable basis for questioning Judge Bell's impartiality in the divorce action exists; however, the standard is not whether there are some facts that would tend to indicate ... a reasonable basis.... Rather, the issue is "whether a reasonable person knowing everything that [Judge Bell] knows would have a "reasonable basis for questioning [Judge Bell's] impartiality."...  Judge Bell, in his pendente lite custody order ... granted the mother and the father joint physical custody of the child, with custody alternating weekly, and ... [he] has granted two other lesbian mothers and the fathers of their children joint physical custody.... [A] reasonable person who knows everything that Judge Bell knows would not have a reasonable basis for questioning Judge Bell's impartiality....

Christian Post reports on the decision.