But by that standard, ironically, the very men who wrote the American constitution would also be disqualified to be judges.
President Donald Trump has promoted Jeff Mateer’s candidacy as a lifetime federal judge. Mateer has been outspoken against same-sex marriage and transgender rights.
Mateer was appointed to the office by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. When Mateer was nominated for the judgeship by Trump, Paxton called Mateer a “principled leader” and a “man of character”.
CNN reported that Mateer said the transgender movement was part of “the destruction going on” when a transgender first-grader in Colorado sued for the right to use the girls’ bathroom and won the case in 2013.
Mateer had also expressed his disappointment with the Supreme Court’s decision to allow same-sex marriage in all 50 US states. He suggested that the decision puts no limit on who – or what – people can marry and warned that same-sex marriage could eventually lead to normalising bestiality and polygamy.
He called words like “throuple” “disgusting” and added that there would no longer be any limits: “Somebody wanted to marry a tree. People marrying their pets.”
Mateer has worked as an advocate with the First Liberty Institute, a non-profit that defends victims of religious discrimination.
Democrats Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California have however questioned his impartiality according to The Dallas Morning News.
“Republicans have lowered the standard for federal judges to get ones who will pass their ideological test: opposition to sensible gun laws, hostility to women’s reproductive rights,” Whitehouse said, suggesting that Mateer was a “new low” and “not normal” for his criticism of transgender rights and same-sex marriage.
“There’s no question these views cast serious doubt on his ability to fairly enforce federal law and treat people impartially,” Feinstein said in a statement.
It is not the first time that Feinstein has been critical of the religious faith of another judicial nominee. She suggested Amy Barrett’s Roman Catholicism would interfere with her ability act fairly as a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals judge.
It seems that the only people qualified to be judges according to the Democratic senators, are atheists who oppose the first and second amendments of the US constitution. It just so happens that the vast majority of modern Americans, belong to the Christian faith.
