Updated at 3:30 p.m. with White House confirming it has dropped the Mateer nomination.

WASHINGTON — Jeff Mateer, a top lawyer for the state of Texas who has described transgender children as evidence of "Satan's plan," will not become a federal judge.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday that the nominations of Mateer and a controversial Alabama nominee, Brett Talley, were dead. A White House aide confirmed to The Dallas Morning News that "both Talley and Mateer will not be moving forward."

One day earlier, Grassley became the first Republican senator to openly oppose the nominations. But the setback seemed isolated.

Mateer serves as first assistant to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Before that he worked for a conservative group that promotes religious freedom. President Donald Trump nominated Mateer on Sept. 7 to fill a vacancy based in Sherman, in the Eastern District of Texas, which handles cases from Plano to Beaumont.

The Mateer nomination drew fierce opposition from Democrats and gay rights activists, who painted him as a religious extremist. They welcomed news that his shot at a lifetime post as a federal judge had ended.

"Jeff Mateer's extreme rhetoric and hateful comments are disqualifying for any public official and should have prevented Donald Trump from nominating him to begin with," said Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign.

Grassley's comments on Tuesday sent a signal for other Republicans. Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, a member of the Judiciary Committee, quickly announced that he would oppose Mateer and Talley and said that Trump received "bad advice" in picking them for the federal bench.

Sen. Kennedy (R-LA) says Grassley is right and that Trump has gotten “bad advice” here. He says he’d vote NO on both these nominee and that neither has the votes to be confirmed. https://t.co/UbgvhGdN2p — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) December 12, 2017

Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz recommended Mateer to the White House. Neither ever publicly backed away from their pick, although Cornyn was miffed to learn of the “Satan’s plan” comments from news accounts a few weeks after the nomination. He and members of a screening committee the Texas senators use to evaluate judicial candidates said Mateer never disclosed the statements.

Cruz said Mateer's comments wouldn't shake his support.

"What he said was pretty outrageous," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who tracks judicial nominations. "The deeper point is that the process can't work if you don't have full information. His biggest mistake was to not divulge everything" to the senators' evaluation committee. "It just blew up in Cornyn's face, and he wasn't happy."

Senate Republicans have worked closely with the White House on judicial picks from the Supreme Court to the trial level, with few glitches. It's a rare area in which President Donald Trump gets near universal plaudits from his own party and by Friday afternoon he's likely to have two new Texas conservatives on the appellate bench, state Supreme Court Justice Don Willett and James Ho.

Talley, a former speechwriter to Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, has defended the Ku Klux Klan on a sports message board. Grassley also tweaked him for failing to tell his committee that his wife is chief of staff to White House counsel Don McGann.

In a pair of 2015 speeches, Mateer complained that states were banning conversion therapy and asserted that same-sex marriage would lead to polygamy and bestiality and other "disgusting" forms of wedlock. He referred to transgender children as "Satan’s spawn" and argued that it would be OK in some circumstances for judges to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

The Pan American Health Organization has deemed conversion therapy "a serious threat to the health" of those treated.

Before going to work for Paxton, Mateer was a top lawyer for a conservative legal group that fights for religious liberty.

"His record as a lawyer and public servant demonstrates a fidelity to law and a commitment to protecting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights," Cruz said at the time.

Mateer made the controversial comments as general counsel for First Liberty, a conservative Plano-based law firm focused on promoting religious liberty.

Kelly Shackelford, the head of First Liberty, stood by Mateer after Grassley and Kennedy's comments Tuesday, calling him a "highly qualified attorney."

"While he was general counsel of First Liberty Institute, Mr. Mateer helped defend the religious liberty of Orthodox Jewish synagogues, inner-city African-American churches, Native American veterans denied access to a sweat lodge on government property, and the Diocese of Austin, among others," Shackelford said in a statement.

Shakelford also noted that the American Bar Association has issued a "qualified" rating to Mateer.

That's the ABA's second highest rating, after "well qualified." At least two and as many as five lawyers on the ABA's 15-member screening committee voted to declare him "unqualified."

Democrats and gay rights advocates have denounced the Mateer nomination since the comments surfaced.

At the liberal Alliance for Justice, president Nan Aron lauded Grassley's stance. She called both Talley and Mateer "wholly unfit for the federal bench," she said. "Mateer has made hostile and offensive remarks about transgender children.”

Mateer has not submitted a questionnaire to the Judiciary Committee, which suggested the nomination had stalled. No confirmation hearing was ever scheduled. Federal judgeships are lifetime appointments and require Senate approval.