One of President Trump’s nominees for the judiciary once lamented transgender children as part of “Satan’s plan.”
Jeff Mateer, nominated to uphold the tenets of the constitution as a federal judge for eastern Texas, railed against homosexuality and transgender bathroom use in a 2015 speech, first reported Wednesday by CNN.
Mateer, who now works as the first assistant attorney general of the Lone Star state, gave a 2015 speech at his job at the First Liberty Institute, where volunteer lawyers take on “religious liberty” cases.
The address, which focused on First Amendment rights, included a laundry list of “disgusting” potential evils being forced on the country from the left-wing, including people marrying trees and people marrying pets.
When discussing a transgender child’s suit about bathroom use in Colorado, he said, “a first grader really knows what their sexual identity? I mean it just really shows you how Satan’s plan is working and the destruction that’s going on.”
In another 2015 speech uncovered by CNN, Mateer took issue with states passing laws against gay “conversion therapy” to rid people of their sexuality.
The would-be judge has not commented publicly about his views being brought up ahead of a potential Senate confirmation process.
He got the nomination, which met with a wave of LGBT criticism after his unearthed speech, following a recommendation from Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Mateer said in his speech that Cruz had worked as a lawyer for First Liberty.
The group’s current deputy general counsel Matthew Kacsmaryk has also been nominated for a federal judge position in Texas.
