The Movement To Remake Religious Liberty Is Taking The Courts
The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing today on the nomination of Kyle Duncan to a lifetime seat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Duncan is one of several of Donald Trumps judicial nominees who have been affiliated with conservative legal organizations that are working to remake American law to protect discrimination in the name of religious freedom.
The Religious Right has so far been thrilled with Trumps nominations to the federal courts, in part with the hope that Trumps judges will endorse the movements effort to rewrite the meaning of religious liberty. With Duncan and others, Trump is attempting to put representatives of this movement directly on the bench.
Duncan previously served as the general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Matthew Kacsmaryk and Jeff Mateer, who have both worked for First Liberty Institute, are nominated to district court seats in Texas. As Sarah Posner notes in an in-depth profile of the Alliance Defending Freedom yesterday, Duncan and Mateer are also among the four Trump judicial nominees with ties to the behemoth conservative legal group, which has done more than any other to promote the radical reimagining of religious liberty.
Mateers nomination has gotten the most attention of these, given his comments about transgender children being part of Satans plan, his invocation of Nazi Germany in discussing the current treatment of conservative Christians in America, and his decision to speak at a conference that featured considerable discussion about the death penalty for gay people. But like Mateer, Duncan and Kasmaryk are poised to bring the ideology of the Religious Right, dressed up in the movements carefully calibrated talking points about religious liberty, into the federal courts.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-movement-to-remake-religious-liberty-is-taking-the-courts/
Remember: This is what Roy Moore's election is about. The Talibangelicals are fueled by hatred, and especially their unabashed hatred of the LGBT community, and when they win, we all lose. Roy Moore will vote to confirm every single one of their nominees, no matter how batshit fucking crazy they are, Doug Jones will not.