Also: Judge Bill Graves is former Oklahoma lawmaker

He called himself a “constitutional conservative” when he announced in 2005 he would run for U.S. Congress. He later withdrew from the congressional race and ran for judge instead.

While in the state Legislature, Graves was among the first there to push for an amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution banning same sex marriages. Voters approved the amendment in 2004.

In 2008, Graves complained about a proposal that would prevent judges from being members of organizations that discriminate based on sexual orientation. In a letter, he accused an Oklahoma Bar Association committee that made the proposal of “promoting the agenda of homosexuals and lesbians at the expense of the constitutional freedoms of judges and the People they represent.”