A Montana district court judge who has a history of donating to Democratic causes said the state’s efforts not to give a nonbinary person a driver’s license violated the state Constitution.
Judge Shane Vannatta ruled last week that M.B., who is a minor, was entitled to receive a driver’s license that recognized the gender on the birth certificate, which is nonbinary.
Vannatta also said the state violated the Montana Human Rights Act, which prevents people from being discriminated against based on sex, religion and other factors.
According to the ruling, Montana can’t deny future applicants who meet all the legal requirements to obtain a driver’s license and want to list their legal sex as non-binary.
This legal case began in 2022 when M.B. went to obtain a driver’s license in Missoula.
On April 22, 2022, after passing the driving test and the Montana Traffic Education Course, M.B. attempted to fill out the part of the application form listing off a person’s sex, but the only two boxes on it were male and female. The ruling said he wrote “NB,” standing for non-binary instead.
Sara and Bryan Berndt, who are M.B.’s parents and plaintiffs in the case, spoke to the Montana Motor Vehicles Division Bureau Chief Rebecca Connors about the situation five days later. Connors told the Berndts that the state had never issued a driver’s license to a non-binary person, the ruling stated.
On July 22, 2022, the Berndts filed a complaint with the Montana Human Rights Commission (MHRC), which issued a report on Jan. 17, 2023, saying that “unlawful discrimination” had occurred in their child’s case, the ruling noted.
A hearing officer on Dec. 26, 2023, awarded the Berndts affirmative relief and told the state to issue a driver’s license with a “non-binary sex designation,” the ruling stated.
The Montana Department of Justice (DOJ) appealed the decision, and the MHRC issued a “Final Agency Decision” that ruled in favor of the DOJ, the ruling said.
Vannatta reversed MHRC’s ruling and reinstated the hearing officer’s ruling.
In the ruling, the judge said the DOJ did not cite a law that showed only a “male or female is a ‘qualified applicant.”
“The State of Montana issued M.B. a birth certificate with designation of NB. Then the DMV denied M.B. the ability to obtain a driver’s license when they listed their legal sex as NB while, at the same time, allowing applicants who list their legal sex as either male or female to obtain a driver’s license,” Vannatta wrote.
“This is arbitrary and discriminatory state action that does not treat all applicants for a driver’s license alike under like circumstances and therefore it is unlawful under Montana’s equal protection clause,” he added.
In a previous case regarding gender, Vannatta, who is Montana’s first openly gay judge, struck down a state law last year that defined sex as being only male or female.
On top of this, he also blocked state law preventing biological males from going into spaces designated for women, such as locker rooms and sleeping quarters. After blocking the ruling, Vannatta recused himself from the case due to the State of Montana’s attempt to have him disqualified from it.
Montana argued the judge’s past social media activity and affiliation with the American Bar Association’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Commission could affect his judgment, the Daily Montanan reported.
Before former Gov. Steve Bullock appointed Vannatta as a judge in 2019, he had a history of donating to Democratic causes.
Vannatta donated $4,609 to Democratic causes from 2008 to 2018, including to the Montana Democratic Party, former Senators Jon Tester and John Walsh, former President Barack Obama, as well as former congressional candidates John Heenan and John Lewis.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, Vannatta donated $1,200 to Heenan and $1,000 to Tester.
These donations were made when Vannatta worked as an attorney in the Missoula area.
Comments
23 responses to “Judge With History of Democratic Donations Rules Montana Must Issue Nonbinary Driver’s License”
It started with “please tolerate us” – which pretty much everybody was doing anyway back in the 60’s and early 70’s when I finished high school without being asked.
Then it became “please accept us” – that wasn’t hard as few people have much interest in what other people do in their bedrooms.
Then it became “Please join us in celebrating Alphabet Sex Pride Tribe”, and we started seeing more government time and money spent celebrating the Alphabet Sex Pride Tribe than is spent remembering and honoring American veterans and those still serving.
And now we’re to the point of being told we better move over and change our society, culture and communities to make these tiny angry, vocal minorities of what are already small minorities of the population feel comfortable in their deviance – no matter how uncomfortable that makes us.
Nobody held a convention of all the components of the Alphabet Sex Pride Tribe where all of them nominated and elected who would be activists and what they would be working towards. It was the opposite: the most extremist, some NGOs made up of a handful of people, and the media selected them and pushed them as being representative of every single American who isn’t heterosexual. They are in operation and tactics cultural Marxists controlled and ran by a central core of totalitarian demagogues who demand submission and compliance from everybody outside their group in America. And from those within their minority group as well.
I only know a few homosexual male couples and just one female homosexual couple (they don’t generally exist in my previous work and current life environment) and they’re senior citizens like me – and THEY are just as much opposed to these demanding, aggressive freak shows as I am. They won’t even have anything to do with the Alphabet Sex Pride Tribe parades and city paid for graffiti, even back at the very beginning of that crap. They think “Drag Queen Story Hour” is criminal behavior. One of the women pointed out to me “My grandmother, mother, and aunts didn’t dress up like cheap back ally whores with makeup put on with a trowel to read us children’s stories while we were growing up”.
In short, it isn’t just “cysgender bias” that is opposed to this crap that requires them to invent new words like “cysgender” and “gender affirming care”. One hell of a new term to describe chemically and surgically mutilating young children who are supposed to be mature enough to make that choice but not mature enough to get a tattoo or drink alcohol.
So like the “kids these days” line, the media carefully selects from these Alphabet Sex groups and feeds us the misfits, the culls, the angry, the unbalanced, and the most vocal of whatever group. Then Democrats and their apparatchiks pair up with the media to push it.
And they carefully select and appoint judges like this to assure the world of their virtue and how they will go to great lengths to assure the tiny, tiny minority of Americans who are the self appointed extremists in the Alphabet Sex Pride Tribe brigades that they’re working hard to make them equals. Except of course, they instead appoint them to act as our superiors in all cultural and domestic matters – cultural Marxism versus Americanism.
And so here we are with this ruling, seemly small, and yet one more step towards tearing down the load bearing walls of our culture – cultural Marxism as the leading edge of economic and finally political Marxism.
But what else would you expect from a homosexual male judge who orders women to subjugate themselves to male gender blenders who demanded he give them a legal right to go dangle their wedding tackle in front of an unwilling audience of little girls and women?
Demented Judge
“Leftist Judge rules State must disregard the law.”
Fixed that headline…
There’s males.
There’s females.
There’s no “other”.
ALL of these activist FREAKS who somehow whored their ways onto to these benches, need to be taken to the train station before they destroy this country!
The plaintiffs sued in court. Involved the govt. on there own behalf. Wasted taxpayers money,time of the judiciary..This has been going on for 2 years..Over a word on a License..What a waste of resources..It would have been easier and less time consuming to check male or female..Good grief..A citizen can stand up for there rights..But this is just a case of not thinking of and using laws in a foolish way..Citizens feel entitled to make nonsense and foolish points using the judiciary as a platform ..The judge also uses the judiciary as a platform for a cause ..Even though there is a claim of neutralty in cases..There is none ..
Democrats believe elevating feelings over facts is a “right.”
These activist judges have no credibility to judge anything. There are only TWO genders, and science has overwhelmingly proven this. If he does these types of cases, all-future decisions are subjective too. You needed to recuse yourself as it is painfully obvious you can’t be unbiased.
The foulest stench in the septic tank is a Judge.
Doubtful there is even one among them who is not crooked.
A prerequisite is the desire to force your opinions on others and take extreme pleasure in causing as much pain and sorrow as possible all while enjoying the forced respect of your fellow citizens
More domestic terrorism from the bench.
The question should be is: “How to remove this Judge” and “How to remove what he just did?”
Why do you have to ask “how”?
a ride to the train station
Someone needs to inform this moron that LEGISLATURES SET PARAMETERS and MAKE LAWS… NOT STUPID LAME BRAINED HOMOSEXUAL JUDGES!
All true Americans are going to have to get their hands dirty because of these corrupt and hateful politicians. Including whoever voted for them. These ILLEGAL rulings must stop Now.
I remember when being gay was a deviant behavior. Then the democraps made it mainstream.
Ask yourself how this deviant, homosexual keeps getting awarded all the critical cases to do with gender orientation in montana🤔
Activist masquerading as a judge.😡
Absolutely shameful😡
The left has no scruples
He is the same judge that blocked a bi-partisan bill that passed the legislature and was signed by the governor to protect females only spaces. How can one district judge block the will of the people of Montana?
Judicial tyranny!
Disgusting! Montana should have never issued the birth certificate incorrectly. Why is the state not fighting that issue? This judge is no good for Montana. He needs to be removed!
Greasy-G at prayer. Too funny! -> https://imgur.com/WNBbg7Z
What a complete pervert.