On the Take: Brian Hagedorn Personally Profited From Speeches to a Hate Group While a Sitting Judge

MADISON, Wis. — According to financial disclosures he is required to file with the state, Brian Hagedorn personally profited from speeches that he gave to an anti-LGBTQ hate group as a sitting judge. Hagedorn reported thousands of dollars in income as payment for speeches he gave to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

“Brian Hagedorn’s homophobia is vile enough on its own,” said One Wisconsin Now Research Director Joanna Beilman-Dulin. “That he would personally profit from it while a sitting judge is appalling.”

In 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 Hagedorn was featured as a speaker at ADF conferences, at least one of which was held in Cancun, Mexico. ADF is deemed a hate group based on their advocacy for an extreme, anti-LGBTQ agenda that includes supporting criminalizing homosexuality, defending sterilization of transgender people, claiming a link between homosexuality and pedophilia and working for legislation and case law to allow LGBTQ people to be denied professional and other services.

Prior to becoming a judge, when he was a top government lawyer, Hagedorn sided with ADF and their allies in a Wisconsin case that sought to deny rights to same sex couples like hospital visitation. During law school, Hagedorn also interned with the Alliance Defense Fund (now called the Alliance Defending Freedom) and described the group as “formed to fight the culture wars” in his own writings.

On the campaign trail, Hagedorn has also refused to say if he would recuse himself from future cases regarding matters he had worked on as a government lawyer or involving groups like ADF that have paid him and with whom he has worked with to advance their agenda.