Transgender children proof of Satan’s plan, according to Trump nominee

Two weeks ago, President Trump announced 16 judicial nominations. Among those were two Texas lawyers with plenty of anti-LGBT+ history behind them. Now, Texas’ First Assistant Attorney General Jeff Mateer, one of the nominees, is drawing new attention for outrageous comments made as general counsel and executive vice president of the First Liberty Institute. (See The Gayly’s coverage of Trump’s nominations at How Trump advances his anti-LGBT+ agenda.)

“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,” according to a CNN report.

"’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,’ Mateer said in a video posted on Vimeo in 2015 and reviewed by CNN's KFile. ‘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’,” the CNN report continued.

“In the same speech, Mateer expressed his disappointment with the Supreme Court’s decision to allow same-sex marriage in all 50 states. He suggested that the decision puts no limit on who – or what – people can marry,” Heavy.com reports. He went on to call same-sex marriage “disgusting”.

Mateer also condemned efforts by states to ban so-called “conversion therapy”. The practice has been completely discredited by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Pediatric Association.

Equality Texas, the state’s LGBT+ advocacy organization, spoke out against Mateer when Attorney General Ken Paxton nominated him as his top assistant in the AG’s office, and again when Trump nominated Mateer for a federal district judgeship.

Mateer’s nomination must be confirmed by the Senate before he assumes the post.

Copyright The Gayly – September 21, 2017 @ 7:50 a.m. CDT.