Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s Nomination to the Northern District is Generating Controversy

Editor’s note: the White House has now indicated that it will no longer proceed with the nomination of Jeff Mateer. And thanks to a comment, I have corrected my marital status below.

On September 7, 2017, President Trump announced his nomination of 16 individuals to Federal judgeships, including two on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas: Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, to be based in Amarillo, and Karen Gren Scholer, to be based in Dallas. Scholer, a former state district judge and current principal at Carter Scholer, was originally nominated by President Barack Obama in 2016 to fill a vacancy in the Eastern District, but the nomination was stonewalled by the GOP despite support from Texas Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. She seems likely to be confirmed this go-round, now that the nomination came from the ruling side of the aisle. Kacsmaryk, on the other hand, has been generating some controversy. The Committee on the Judiciary was scheduled to hold hearings to examine his nomination today.

Kacsmaryk previously was an associate in the Dallas office of Baker Botts and currently serves as the Deputy General Counsel to the Plano-based First Liberty Institute, a conservative law firm focused on filing religious liberty cases (Jeff Mateer, a current nominee for the Eastern District in Sherman, also worked for the First Liberty Institute and was blasted yesterday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley for calling transgender children part of “Satan’s plan,” among other things). Kacsmaryk’s highlight reel includes a 2015 article for the Witherspoon Institute titled, “The Inequality Act: Weaponizing Same-Sex Marriage.” I will give him credit for the creative, albeit cutesy, use of That ’70s Show as a section header. But I will point out that in the following excerpt, while arguing that interracial marriage (which he views as acceptable) is not analogous to same sex marriage (which he views as an abomination), he 1) confuses “former” and “latter,” and 2) sides with Napoleon. I leave all other conclusions to you. Full disclosure: I am gay and married.

“[D]espite repeated attempts to meld the two into one ‘right side of history’ campaign, the Sexual Revolution is not the Civil Rights Movement. Both started in the post-war boom and gained ground in the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, but they share almost nothing else in common. They have different origins, different leaders, different objectives, and different legacies.

The former was rooted in the soil of the uniquely American Judeo-Christian tradition, spearheaded by Christian leaders, and was essentially ‘moderate’ in its demands. It sought the restoration of civil rights won in the Civil War and ratified in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, with additional, necessary protections for the mediating institutions essential to the African-American community: family, home, church, school, and business. In this way, the Civil Rights Movement was like the American Revolution, seeking to restore rather than destroy.

The latter was rooted in the soil of elitist postmodern philosophy, spearheaded by secular libertines, and was essentially ‘radical’ in its demands. It sought public affirmation of the lie that the human person is an autonomous blob of Silly Putty unconstrained by nature or biology, and that marriage, sexuality, gender identity, and even the unborn child must yield to the erotic desires of liberated adults. In this way, the Sexual Revolution was more like the French Revolution, seeking to destroy rather than restore.”