From Bad to Worse

The Daily Beast published an article yesterday (link here) with a title of "What Trump’s Judicial Nominees Have in Common: They Really Don’t Want LGBT People to Have Rights."

The piece details how roughly a third of Donald Trump's pending judicial nominees have known strongly anti-LGBT records. Some persist in insisting same-sex marriage is unlawful, notwithstanding that legal issue has been settled by the Supreme Court, and lower court judges must always abide by higher court rulings.

The article singles out the three worst nominees in terms of anti-LGBT positions. The homophobe prize goes to Kyle Duncan, a federal appellate nominee known as the "go-to guy for the anti-LGBT movement." He provided legal counsel in favor of North Carolina's notorious bathroom bill and has called transgender persons "delusional."

Howard Nielson is another horrible nominee, this time for a district court, which is the trial level in the federal judiciary. Nielson was part of the legal team that defended California's reprehensible Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage ten years ago (which has since been reversed). Nielsen was the lawyer responsible for attempting to disqualify the judge hearing a legal challenge to the law on the grounds he was gay.

The third disastrous nominee is Gordon Giampietro, whose nomination has run into interference recently because of allegations he withheld important information from his documents submitted for judicial consideration. Giampietro has written in the recent past that marriage equality is "an assault on nature" and "against God’s plan." He has also been harshly criticized in recent days when recordings of him surfaced criticizing Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has authored judicial opinions upholding LGBT rights, as someone who "went off the rails years ago."

Of these three nominees, Giampietro stands on the weakest ground and his confirmation could be blocked if a few Republican Senators vote against him. If you haven't done so already, now is the time to call your Senators and tell them to vote against these three, particularly Giampietro. Phone number and email information for all Senators can be found here.