Advocates for Faith & Freedom has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s veto of Pastor Dennis Hodges’ reappointment to the city’s Citizens Advisory Board on Police/Community Relations, arguing the mayor punished Hodges for his Christian beliefs about human sexuality and gender identity.
The case now before the high court caps a three-year legal battle that began after Hodges was criticized for comments he made while serving on the San Diego County Human Relations Commission.
Hodges, a longtime corrections officer and pastor of the Church of Yeshua Ha Mashiach in Lemon Grove, California, has spent decades in public service, including work as a captain and special agent in the California Department of Corrections and chaplain to the San Diego Police Department.
City records show he joined the Citizens Advisory Board on Police/Community Relations in 2017 after the San Diego City Council determined that, although he lived in the county rather than the city, his law-enforcement background and experience as police chaplain gave him “unique qualifications” for the voluntary post.
In March 2021, Hodges was appointed as a regular member of the county’s Human Relations Commission, according to official appointment documents.
Later that year, during debate on a resolution to “amplify transgender voices,” Hodges abstained rather than vote in favor or against and explained that he believed God created people male and female while insisting that all individuals should be treated with dignity and respect, according to accounts in subsequent media coverage and legal filings.
Some commissioners labeled his remarks anti-LGBTQ and pushed for his removal from the commission, but a majority ultimately voted to keep him in place.
Advocates for Faith & Freedom says nearly two years after that commission vote, Gloria used those comments as grounds to veto Hodges’ reappointment to the police advisory board in August 2023.
A memorandum quoted in local news reports shows the mayor concluded Hodges had made “repeated concerning public comments about LGBTQ people — specifically, the transgender community” and said he could not support reappointing him to a board tasked with improving relations between police and the community.
Hodges responded by filing a federal civil-rights lawsuit in November 2023, seeking damages and reinstatement and alleging that Gloria’s decision was driven solely by his beliefs about human creation and transgender identity, not by any misconduct in his advisory role.
In June 2024, U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan granted the city’s motion to dismiss the suit, ruling that the mayor was entitled to select advisory-board members who shared his policy priorities and that political compatibility, including on issues involving LGBTQ rights, was a permissible criterion for appointment.
Whelan’s order held that under San Diego’s municipal code and strong-mayor charter system, the Citizens Advisory Board functions as an extension of the mayor, who may veto reappointments without cause and is not required to retain volunteers whose public statements he views as inconsistent with his political agenda.
Hodges, represented by Advocates for Faith & Freedom, appealed to the Ninth Circuit, arguing that the ruling allowed government officials to penalize public servants for expressing religious convictions on contested social questions.
A Ninth Circuit panel ultimately affirmed the dismissal, concluding that Gloria could decline to reappoint Hodges based on his publicly expressed views and that the mayor was shielded by qualified immunity, according to the court’s opinion.
In subsequent filings, Advocates for Faith & Freedom contends that the panel’s approach conflicts with Supreme Court precedent and other federal circuits by treating Hodges as a political policymaker rather than a low-level advisory volunteer with no authority to set or enforce city policy.
The group warns that under the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning, officials could impose ideological tests on a wide range of volunteer boards and commissions, effectively excluding people whose religious beliefs diverge from prevailing political views.
Supreme Court records show Hodges has already secured an extension of time to file his petition for certiorari and that the case, listed under an application naming Gloria in both his official and individual capacities, is now on the court’s docket.
If the justices agree to hear the case, they will be asked to decide whether a mayor may treat a volunteer advisory role as politically aligned employment and whether excluding a pastor for articulating traditional Christian teaching on gender amounts to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.
For now, Hodges remains off the San Diego police advisory board, while church-state advocates and municipal officials across the country watch to see whether the Supreme Court will use the dispute to clarify how far elected leaders may go in demanding ideological conformity from those who wish to serve on public commissions.