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| Trump judicial nominee Jeff Mateer |
According to Vice, in a 2015 speech to the National Religious Liberties Conference, Trump's judicial nominee to the federal bench in Texas, Jeff Mateer, admitted that he discriminates against gays:
“Guess what? I attend a conservative Baptist church. We discriminate, alright. On the basis of sexual orientation, we discriminate.”
. . . That remark is just one of many that Mateer — who’s currently the first assistant attorney general in Austin, Texas — made during a pair of speeches at the conference. In them, Mateer provided a roadmap for businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ people without legal repercussions. In the two speeches — titled “Seven Things Every Christian Employee Should Know” and “Are You Ready? Protecting Your Church or 501(c)(3) Ministry” — Mateer also said the Constitution doesn’t mandate the separation of church and state and that diversity training “brainwashes” people into accepting the LGBTQ lifestyle. Citing both speeches, 36 LGBTQ advocacy organizations sent a letter to the Senate on Tuesday demanding that its members vote down Mateer’s nomination. His comments, the letter states, “disqualify” him from public service.
Comments taken from the speeches are a veritable cornucopia of reasons as to why Mateer has no business on the federal bench.
Among them, Mateer said the separation of church and state is nowhere in the Constitution, diversity training is reprogramming, churches should be able to endorse candidates, marriage equality is illegal in spite of the SCOTUS decision legalizing it, and "honest conviction" allows employers to discriminate.
During the time of the speech, Mateer as employed as general counsel for First Liberty Institute, a religious right organization. He is already under fire for other past statements, including claiming that transgender children are a part of "Satan's plan." This latest development only adds to his troubles.
Hat tip to The New Civil Rights Movement.
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