Texas born lawyer Lawrence VanDyke graduated from Bear Valley Bible Institute College with a BA in theology and Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude. He was appointed solicitor general in the states of Nevada and Montana. He is pro-guns and anti-abortion, which raised the ire of the American Bar Association when Trump nominated him to the prestigious 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, based out of San Francisco, California. VanDyke wrote a legal “friend of the Court” brief supporting the right of a photographer to refuse to photograph a lesbian commitment ceremony.

The ABA tried to prevent VanDyke’s appointment to the 9th Circuit and submitted a letter to Congress that described VanDyke as “arrogant, lazy, an ideologue, lacking in knowledge, lacking in humility, has an entitlement temperament, does not have an open mind, does not always have a commitment to being candid and truthful, and may not be fair to persons who are gay or lesbian.” When asked during confirmation hearings whether VanDyke would be fair to members of the LGBTQ community VanDyke broke down in tears and stated: “I did not say that. I do not believe that. It is a fundamental belief of mine that all people are created in the image of God and they should all be treated with dignity and respect.” Prominent legal scholars and former members of the ABA came to his defense. This is a man with a degree in theology. He is super frum. He one represented Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty defending their right to exclude members whose sexual conduct violated the group’s beliefs.

VanDyke was recently rebuked by his fellow Jurists because of the language he used to describe men in his dissenting opinion in the case of Olymus Spa v. Armstrong. VanDyke supported the right of a Korean spa to exclude men from the spa, or in his words “swinging d*cks.” I have never been to a Korean spa. The majority opinion provided an explanation as to what goes on in a Korean spa: “Traditional Korean spa therapy focuses on rejuvenating the body and mind through treatments, massages, and full-body scrubs in communal bathhouses and steam rooms… patrons must be nude in the communal bathhouse and sauna areas, and unlike other spas, patrons are not given robes or towels for covering up. Patrons must also remain fully nude to receive traditional Korean spa services like seshin, a traditional Korean body scrub of the entire body. After soaking in a warm pool, customers are scrubbed head-to-toe to promote holistic health and to exfoliate the skin by dbemiri who intimately touch patrons for prolonged periods as they scrub them all over their bodies. And all of this occurs in a large communal area, where all the patrons must be naked. The Spa limits entry to biological women and post-operative transgender women (i.e., people who were born biological males but underwent sex-reassignment operations). Olympus Spa—a female-only spa—provides services to anyone without male genitalia. And given that the Spa provides services to girls as young as thirteen, Sun Lee believes the Spa has a responsibility to safeguard the privacy of those minors. The entry policy also reflects the owners’ religious beliefs. Describing themselves as “traditional theologically conservative Korean Christians,” they consider modesty between males and females as a central tenet. They also believe that it would violate their faith to compel their female employees to give full-body massages to individuals with exposed male genitalia…:”

VanDyke wrote the following dissenting opinion: “This is a case about swinging dicks. The Christian owners of Olympus Spa—a traditional Korean, women- only, nude spa—understandably don’t want them in their spa. Their female employees and female clients don’t want them in their spa either. But Washington State insists on them. And now so does the Ninth Circuit. You may think that swinging dicks shouldn’t appear in a judicial opinion. You’re not wrong. But as much as you might understandably be shocked and displeased to merely encounter that phrase in this opinion, I hope we all can agree that it is far more jarring for the unsuspecting and exposed women at Olympus Spa—some as young as thirteen—to be visually assaulted by the real thing. Sometimes, it feels like the supposed adults in the room have collectively lost their minds. Woke regulators and complicit judges seem entirely willing, even eager, to ignore the consequences that their Frankenstein social experiments impose on real women and young girls.”

The majority opinion rebuked VanDyke’s dissent by stating that he had used his dissent to “air personal grievances entirely unbecoming of members of this court. Regarding the dissenting opinion of Judge VanDyke: We are better than this.” Touché! Judges can so judgmental.

If you have a tip, story idea, suggested correction, or would like help brainstorming a legal issue you are dealing with, you can reach me at: larrylokshen@gmail.com.

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