Former Oregon judge who refused to marry same-sex couples says he was appointed to US Justice Department

Vance Day, a former Marion County Circuit Court Judge who drew controversy and a judicial rebuke for his stance on same-sex marriage, has joined the U.S. Department of Justice.

“I can confirm that I received an appointment to serve as ‘Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General of the United States,’” Day told OPB in an email.

The deputy attorney general is the second in command at the Justice Department and oversees an agency that includes the FBI, a sprawling federal prison system and U.S. Attorneys across the country. President Donald Trump has named Todd Blanche, who served as one of the president’s criminal defense lawyers, to the post pending confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

Day said that his first day at the Justice Department was Tuesday. He was unable to do an interview, he said. The Justice Department did not return OPB’s request for comment.

“I am deep into the onboarding process,” Day wrote to OPB. As for what his day-to-day will entail, Day stated: “I will receive my assignments soon, but not much to add at this point.”

Day’s time as an elected jurist in Oregon was rocky.

In 2018, the Oregon Supreme Court suspended Day from his seat on the bench for three years without pay for his screening of same-sex couples wishing to marry and for allowing a felon to hold a firearm.

“We conclude that a lengthy suspension is required, to preserve public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary,” the state’s high court wrote.

That was a less severe penalty than the state’s Judicial Fitness Commission recommended, which said the high court should remove Day from the bench completely.

Related: Oregon Supreme Court Suspends Marion County Judge Vance Day Without Pay For 3 Years

Day was criminally charged for allowing a felon under his supervision to hold a firearm, but the case was tossed out just before trial.

He later told the Statesman Journal he was being targeted for his political and religious beliefs.

“I’m the first person to ever push back against the decades of liberal elites in Oregon government,” Day said, according to the newspaper.

Most notably, Day told court staff to tell same-sex couples he wasn’t available to perform marriages. He also told staff to search court records for the gender information about couples wishing to marry.

“Those actions indisputably communicated to his staff his intention to treat same-sex couples who requested a marriage officiant differently from opposite-sex couples,” the Oregon Supreme Court wrote. “While it is true that respondent’s actions did not result in any actual refusal to marry a same-sex couple … we nonetheless conclude that those actions manifested prejudice ‘against others,’ within the meaning of the rule.”

In recent years, Day has served as an attorney representing an anti-LGBTQ activist who served on the Crook County School board as well as Republican lawmakers during their 2023 walkout.

Related: Marion County judge denies Republican effort to waylay abortion, gender-affirming health care bill

Day, a former chair of the Oregon Republican Party, also unsuccessfully ran for the Oregon Court of Appeals in 2022.

Trump has vowed to overhaul the U.S. Department of Justice. As part of that effort, the president directed all remaining U.S. Attorneys appointed by former President Joe Biden to be terminated from their positions. While it is typical of a new administration to ask political appointees to resign, Trump’s mass firing Tuesday of the remaining U.S. Attorney’s appeared political, saying on this social media platform Truth Social that the agency needed to “‘clean house’ IMMEDIATELY.”

Oregon’s U.S. Attorney Natalie Wight, a career federal prosecutor, was among those fired.

Related: Anti-LGBTQ activism goes unchallenged at the top of Crook County schools

OPB’s Emily Cureton Cook contributed reporting.