Texas federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who recently ruled to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, failed to disclose two interviews he did prior to his confirmation in which he spread dangerous lies about LGBTQ people, despite requirements for federal judicial nominees to do so.
Twice in 2014, Donald Trump-nominated Kacsmaryk appeared on a Christian talk radio show with “a biblical constitutional worldview” named Chosen Generation. He was brought on to talk about the completely unproven conspiracy theory, popular among Republicans, that the supposed “homosexual agenda” is taking over the government and silencing Christians. The radio appearances were first reported by CNN.
These interviews, in which Kacsmaryk disparaged LGBTQ people and contraception for supposedly contributing to a “sexual revolution,” have never been disclosed by the judge even though it is required for federal judicial nominees to disclose things that they have written or said in public in order for lawmakers and the public to properly assess judges.
A spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) confirmed to CNN that documents filed during Kacsmaryk’s nomination process, which began in 2017, did not include the interviews. Kacsmaryk told the publication in a statement that he didn’t disclose the interviews because he forgot about them and that, after seeing transcripts of the interviews, he stands by what he said.
In the interviews, Kacsmaryk claimed that the LGBTQ community is working with the government to silence Christianity — a message originating from fringe right-wing groups that have long sought to erode the rights of LGBTQ people, using “religious freedom” as a bludgeon.
“I just want to make very clear, people who experience a same-sex attraction are not responsible individually or solely for the atmosphere of the sexual revolution,” Kacsmaryk said in an appearance from February 2014. “You know it. It’s a long time coming. It came after no-fault divorce. It came after we implemented very permissive policies on contraception. The sexual revolution has gone through several phases. We just happen to be at the phase now where same sex marriages is at the fore.”
Later, the judge agreed when the host said that the government is aiming to treat opponents of same sex marriage as “hostile” enemies, similarly to al-Qaeda. “That is very much in vogue now in the federal government to characterize opposition to same sex marriage and related issues as irrational prejudice at best and a potential hate crime at worse,” he said.
In an appearance later that year, Kacsmaryk parroted similarly cruel anti-LGBTQ arguments, claiming that the Obama administration was eroding religious rights by granting protections to LGBTQ people, He also said that being gay is “a lifestyle” and suggested that people who experience “same sex attraction” should be “willing to live celibate.”
The omission of the interviews seems to indicate a concerning pattern of Kacsmaryk covering up his bigoted views on LGBTQ people, who are now under attack by Republicans across the country due in large part to the same network of judicial activists responsible for installing Kacsmaryk and numerous other conservative judges into powerful positions — including every sitting right-wing judge on the Supreme Court.
Last week, The Washington Post uncovered that Kacsmaryk had submitted an article to a Texas law review in 2017 riddled with lies about trans people and abortion. The article attacked an Obama administration decision to protect trans people and abortion seekers, saying that the administration was yanking rights away from religious health providers who “cannot use their scalpels to make female what God created male” and “cannot use their pens to prescribe or dispense abortifacient drugs designed to kill unborn children.”
Then, in what legal experts said was an unusual and suspicious move, Kacsmaryk had his name removed from the article and replaced with the names of two of his colleagues, in anticipation of his nomination to his current position as a district judge.
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