Post submitted by Stephen Peters,  former Senior National Press Secretary and Spokesperson

Today, HRC responded to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley’s call for Trump to “reconsider” the nomination of Jeff Mateer. HRC has repeatedly sounded the alarm on Mateer, urging the Senate to reject his nomination and those of other nominees who could seriously threaten the future of LGBTQ equality in America.

“The Trump-Pence administration’s extreme judicial nominee, Jeff Mateer, has been repeatedly exposed as unfit and unqualified to serve. With Senator Grassley’s call for Trump to reconsider Mateer’s nomination, the writing is on the wall. Mateer has to go,” said HRC Government Affairs Director David Stacy. “Mateer has spent his career publicly voicing his contempt for LGBTQ people, opposing LGBTQ non-discrimination protections, and even attacking transgender children. As we have said from the beginning, the White House must immediately withdraw his nomination.”

Trump nominated Jeff Mateer to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In a 2015 speech titled “The Church and Homosexuality,” Mateer objected to a transgender student using a restroom consistent with her gender identity, saying “I mean it just really shows you how Satan's plan is working and the destruction that's going on.” He defended then-Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s ‘license-to-discriminate’ bill and objected to efforts to alter the legislation. Mateer fought against non-discrimination protections for the LGBTQ community in Plano and San Antonio, Texas, and he even supports the dangerous and debunked practice of so-called “conversion therapy.” Mateer also claimed that marriage equality will lead to bestiality.