There is no apparent end to conservative efforts to put bug-crazy lunatics into positions of power in America. In Wisconsin, efforts are focused on elevating the obsessively anti-LGBT Brian Hagedorn onto the state Supreme Court. Hagedorn has at least two decades of conspiracy-minded and otherwise loopy anti-LGBT (and anti-abortion, and anti-take-your-pick) rhetoric behind him, so it's not as if he is an unknown quantity or someone who state conservatives believe could slip under the radar.
He's argued that homosexuality is no different than sexually assaulting a dog, called the NAACP a "disgrace to America, and called Planned Parenthood a "wicket organization" committed to "killing babies." He's the Wisconsin version of Roy Moore, presumably minus a history of attempted child rapes.
But lest we think there's no more to uncover about the man, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that as a state Court of Appeals judge for three years, he gave paid speeches to a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBT hate group.
Hagedorn, a judge on the state Court of Appeals, gave speeches in 2015, 2016 and 2017 to Alliance Defending Freedom, earning more than $1,000 each time, according to his campaign and his filings with ethics regulators.
The so-called Alliance Defending Freedom is a nasty piece of work, earning their spot among influential American hate groups for a host of anti-LGBT conspiracy theories; for supporting efforts in this and other countries to criminalize homosexuality; for ties to white nationalism and other extremists; and for relentless so-called "religious liberty" arguments seeking to stifle anti-bullying and anti-discrimination laws. It has come into considerable power in the last few years due to their popularity in Trump's hard-right orbit, but it's still a hate group.
Hagedorn is facing off in April against fellow Court of Appeals Judge Lisa Neubauer, a progressive. We'll see if Wisconsin voters are as fed up with hard-right conservative rule in April as they were last November, when then-Gov. Scott Walker was tossed out on his ear on a night that saw a sweeping rejection of Trump-styled Republicanism throughout the nation. Republicans certainly don't seem to be interested in inching back from the ledge they've put themselves on with their increasingly hard-right, conspiracy-promoting, hate-linked candidates.