Janet T. Neff has been nominated by Bush to a federal district judgeship in Michigan as “part of a multi-judge deal between the White House and Michigan’s two Democratic senators resolving a long-standing fight over federal court nominees from that state.”

But because Neff attended a commitment ceremony for a lesbian couple in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 2002, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback is blocking her nomination.

Mr. Brownback has said he wants to satisfy himself that the judge was not presiding over an “illegal marriage ceremony” in Pittsfield, Mass., in 2002 — before the state legalized same-sex marriage. He has written to Judge Neff asking for an explanation, his spokesman says, and will hold up her nomination until he learns the nature of the ceremony and its legality. “It seems to speak about her view of judicial activism,” the senator told the Associated Press.

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