Judge VanDyke: “This is a case about swinging dicks.”
“…The Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc Olympus Spa v. Armstrong. Judge VanDyke wrote the lead dissent, which begins this way:
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…”
More from Judge VanDyke:
“…Finally, I’ll respond briefly to my colleagues’ discomfort with how I’ve written this dissent. My distressed colleagues appear to have the fastidious sensibilities of a Victorian nun when it comes to mere unpleasant words in my opinion, yet exhibit the scruples of our dearly departed colleague Judge Reinhardt when it comes to the government trampling on religious liberties and exposing women and girls to male genitalia. That kind of selective outrage speaks for itself.
The public deserves a court that is actually trustworthy. We should be earning that trust, not demanding it like petty tyrants. Yes, the introduction to this dissent intentionally uses indecorous language. But that is quite literally what this case is about. Male genitalia is precisely (and only) what the Spa, for religious reasons, objects to admitting into its female-only space. The fact that so many on our court want to pretend that this case is about anything other than swinging dicks is the very reason the shocking language is necessary. The panel majority uses slick legal arguments and deflection to studiously avoid eye contact with the actual and horrific consequences of its erroneous opinion. The “ordinary Americans” affected by the majority’s opinion don’t have that luxury. Squirm as we might, I think it’s only fair for our court to have a small taste of its own medicine.
Sometimes “dignified and civil” words are employed to mask a legal abomination. Or, to put it in vernacular perhaps more palatable to my colleagues’ Victorian sensibilities: “In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, / But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, / Obscures the show of evil?”
Sometimes coarse and ugly words bear the truth. I coarsely but respectfully dissent from our court’s willingness to leave this travesty in place…”
You already know what type of “judges” were responsible for the decision that VanDyke dissents from – Democrats.

