Dozens of prominent conservative lawmakers and leaders are urging President Trump to withdraw the judicial nomination of a lawyer who once compared Catholics to the Ku Klux Klan and radical Islam.
Michael Bogren, a Michigan lawyer, was nominated to fill a judicial spot on the District Court for the Western District of Michigan.
However, conservatives are outraged over assertions he made while representing the city of East Lansing after they banned Catholic farmer Steve Tennes from selling produce at the farmer’s market.
City leaders wanted to punish the Tennes family because they refused to host same-sex marriages at their farm. I write extensively about this case in my upcoming book, “Culture Jihad: How to Stop the Left From Killing a Nation.” Click here to pre-order a copy.
Bogren signed onto motions that characterized the family’s Catholic faith as “invidious discrimination against the LGBT community.”
He also drew analogies between faithful Catholics and the KKK’s stance against interracial marriage.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) gave Bogren an opportunity to denounce those remarks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. However, the nominee refused to do so.
“So you think that the Catholic families, pointing to the teachings of their church, is equivalent to a KKK member invoking Christianity,” Hawley asked?
“There is no distinction,” Bogren replied.
Senator Josh Hawley grilling judicial nominee over his anti-Catholic rhetoric:
“No, you specifically compared this Catholic family’s adherence to their religious beliefs with the views of the KKK.”
Senator Hawley then reminds everyone of the Masterpiece Cake Shop SCOTUS Case pic.twitter.com/4YsoDKy8x0
— The Columbia Bugle ?? (@ColumbiaBugle) May 22, 2019
Sen. Hawley said in the hearing that he was shocked by the statements in Bogren’s legal briefs.
“He compared their Christian beliefs about marriage to the racism of the Ku Klux Klan, arguing that following the teachings of their faith by not celebrating same-sex weddings on their farm was ‘no different than the ‘White Applicants Only’ sign,'” Hawley later wrote in a National Review column. “He also attacked the sincerity and the consistency of their beliefs, arguing that they only ‘selectively’ apply their faith to their lives.”
Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, former U.S. Attorney Edwin Meese, III, former U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint and Faith Wins president Chad Connelly are among the conservative leaders who called for the president to withdraw the nomination.
“Bogren’s argument reveals religious bias lacking even the usual effort of a thin disguise,” read a statement released by the Conservative Action Project.
