The hot topic’s one the justice should know to avoid, per a 2014 profile in The New York Times:
Of course, no one who uses Twitter needs to be reminded of the perils of a misguided tweet. In a phone interview, Justice Willett acknowledged the risks of high-speed, low-character-count dispatches. While on Twitter and Facebook, where he also maintains a public profile, he said he avoids partisan commentary and any legal issues that might come before him. “My political consultant said I’m the only client of his that he does not worry about,” he said.
The main reason for his online presence, he said, is a practical one: staying connected to voters. Texas state
judges are elected, and State Supreme Court justices serve six-year terms. Justice Willett, who was first appointed to the court by Gov. Rick Perry in 2005, has won two elections since and will be on the ballot again in 2018. He calls it “political malpractice” not to make use of social media.
Willett was reelected in 2012 with 78.8% of the vote, which might give the state’s gay plaintiffs something to worry about for the next few years, as the Dallas Observer noted following his most recent reelection:
They would also learn that James C. Dobson, the evangelical heir to Billy Graham and founder of Focus on the Family — a man who doesn’t much care for gays or their right to equal protection under the law — endorses him as “the most conservative justice on the Texas Supreme Court. Tea Party patriots, pro-life and pro-family conservatives, limited-government advocates, constitutionalists and any who value American liberty should support Justice Don Willett,”So, plaintiffs who happen to be gay, liberal or pro-choice might not be blamed for wondering whether Willett‘s ideologies will preclude a fair hearing.
Of course Willett‘s opinion on marriage may have evolved over a particularly potent bacon cheeseburger Smokeshack, as Shake Shack was on the brain just an hour earlier.