So it turns out that federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who put a (nearly immediately blocked) ban on Mifepristone, a pill that is used to end pregnancies, has been found to unsurprisingly also hate other forms of contraception and be a raging homophobe.
Kacsmaryk was appointed to his position as a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas under Trump’s administration in 2019, after a two-year-long, fiercely contested nomination process, during which time he apparently did not disclose everything that he was supposed to. He was essentially supposed to submit basically everything he’s ever said publically for the Senate Judiciary Committee to review ahead of the confirmation process. According to CNN, Kacsmaryk failed to disclose two radio interviews from 2014 when he appeared as a guest on the Christian station Chosen Generation.
In the interviews, he said some … questionable things. Two of the most prominent statements were that being gay was a “lifestyle” and that the “permissive” policies on contraception and no-fault divorce were to blame for the sexual revolution.
“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. 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.”
He, unfortunately, continued, essentially saying that the people experiencing real persecution are the bigots opposing gay marriage.
“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 whined.
At the time of the comments, Kacsmaryk worked as a debut general counsel at First Liberty Institute, which is a nonprofit religious advocacy group. It was there that he challenged areas of the Affordable Care Act, including emergency contraception and insurance for birth control.
After being appointed as a judge, he said, “As a judge, I’m no longer in the advocate role. I’m in the role of reading and applying with all good faith whatever Supreme Court and 5th Circuit precedent is binding.” Yet, according to the Texas Tribune, he has gone on to oversee 95% of cases in Amarillo, Texas, and he has reinstated Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico‘ policy and pushed back on Biden’s efforts to protect young trans people and those in the workplace who identify as LGBT+.
In a statement given to CNN, he said he “did not recall” doing the undisclosed interview. He said, “I used the DOJ-OLP manual to run searches for all media but did not locate this interview and did not recall this event, which involved a call-in to a local radio show.
“After listening to the audio file supplied by CNN, I agree that the content is equivalent to the legal analysis appearing throughout my SJQ and discussed extensively during my Senate confirmation hearing. Additionally, the transcript supplied by CNN appears to track with the audio and accurately recounts my responses during the phone call—when quoted in full.”
He hasn’t just verbalized his horrible opinions, but has also written an op-ed in The National Catholic Register, which has the headline ‘The Abolition of Man … and Woman’. In it, he states much of the same rhetoric of his interviews, and it’s honestly just a load of waffling that doesn’t really make much sense. Also, in 2017, he got his name removed from a review article that criticized trans people and abortion. Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who is chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, confirmed that neither appeared in his submission around his confirmation.
This is the man who decided a provenly safe abortion medication needed to be taken off the market more than two decades after it was approved by the FDA. It’s outrageous that this man has any authority whatsoever over our lives, he’s made that extremely clear.
(featured image: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
