Dangerous religious extremist: Federal judicial nominee claims gay marriage leads to bestiality, and transgender children are evidence of “Satan’s plan.”

Jeff Mateer, Trump’s nominee to be a District Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Sherman division, is a dangerous religious extremist who rejects the separation of church and state.

In addition, Mateer supports the deplorable practice of gay conversion therapy, claims gay marriage leads to bestiality, and believes that transgender children are evidence of “Satan’s plan.”

CNN reports:

In a pair of 2015 speeches, President Donald Trump’s nominee for a federal judgeship in Texas described transgender children as evidence of “Satan’s plan,” lamented that states were banning conversion therapy and argued that sanctioning same-sex marriage would lead to polygamy and bestiality.

In a May 2015 speech, titled “The Church and Homosexuality,” Trump’s judicial nominee condemned transgender children as nothing more than “Satan’s plan”:

In Colorado, a public school has been sued because a first grader and I forget the sex, she’s a girl who thinks she’s a boy or a boy who thinks she’s a girl, it’s probably that, a boy who thinks she’s a girl. And the school said, ‘Well, she’s not using the girl’s restroom.’ And so she has now sued to have a right to go in. Now, I submit to you, a parent of three children who are now young adults, 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 that same May 2015 speech, Mateer condemned the Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriage, calling marriage equality “disgusting”:

I submit to you that there’ll be no line there. And actually in the arguments Chief Justice Roberts, who’s in the center there said, I mean, what is the limiting? Why couldn’t four 4 people wanna get married? Why not one man and three women? Or three women and one man? And we’re gonna spare you some of those slides. We actually have a presentation that we get into it. And I’ll tell you, we say it’s PG-13, it may be R, or what do they call the next one? NC-17 or whatever? I mean, it’s disgusting. I’ve learned words I didn’t know. I mean, other than…my assistants here, have you ever heard the word ‘throuple’?’ Throuple’ so that’s three people coming together of different sexes, maybe mixed sexes. Them coming together. There are people who marry themselves. Somebody wanted to marry a tree. People marrying their pets. It’s just like — you know, you read the New Testament and you read about all the things and you think, ‘Oh, that’s not going on in our community.’ Oh yes it is. We’re back to that time where debauchery rules.

Trump’s judicial nominee also expressed his support for the discredited and deplorable practice of gay conversion therapy, noting:

Biblical counselors and therapists, we’ve seen cases in New Jersey and in California where folks have gotten in trouble because they gave biblical counseling and, you know, the issue is always, it’s same sex. And if you’re giving conversion therapy, that’s been outlawed in at least two states and then in some local areas. So they’re invading that area.

Commenting on Mateer’s 2015 speech, The Hill notes:

Mateer’s statements were made at a conference organized by pastor Kevin Swanson, a religious leader who has argued that the biblical punishment for homosexuality is death.

Currently Mateer is the First Assistant Attorney General of Texas. Before he began working for the Texas Attorney General’s office, Mateer spent years with the prominent, religious-right, anti-LGBT litigation group First Liberty Legal.

Mateer served as general counsel and executive vice president of First Liberty, which describes itself as “the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to protecting religious liberty for all Americans.”

Remember, when conservatives talk about “religious liberty,” they usually mean special rights and protections for conservative Christian bigots. Mateer is no exception to this rule.

Bottom line: Jeff Mateer, Trump’s federal judicial nominee to be a District Judge, is a dangerous religious extremist who rejects the separation of church and state, supports gay conversion therapy, claims gay marriage leads to bestiality, and believes that transgender children are evidence of “Satan’s plan.”