Alert: Conservative Lawmakers Moving to Stop Anti-Faith Trump Nominee
Donald Trump has had a pretty good year as president, all things considered: Unemployment is at record lows. Historic North Korean peace talks are moving forward, albeit slowly. The midterms are looking solid for Republicans, and the president’s base appears strong.
Conservatives have a lot of reasons to defend Trump, but sometimes they also must call him out when he’s on the wrong path.
That’s exactly what a group of Republican lawmakers is now doing. Some well-known conservative names are sounding the alarm on a nominee backed by Trump, and waving red flags about her apparently anti-faith stance on several issues.
Chai Feldblum was nominated to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under Barack Obama. Despite promising to “drain the swamp,” President Trump has renominated her to the commission — but conservative Christian lawmakers don’t think that’s a wise idea.
“Much of the institutional religious right has mobilized in opposition to her reappointment, given the intensely progressive positions she has taken on a variety of issues,” reported The Daily Caller.
Those issues primarily relate to religious freedom.
“As an academic at the Georgetown University Law Center, Feldblum advocated for the primacy of LGBT rights over religious liberty where the two conflict, and questioned the utility of marriage as a social good,” The Daily Caller explained.
“In one 2005 article, Feldblum articulated a positive moral case for gay sex, and criticized ideological fellow travelers for ducking normative questions about homosexuality,” The Daily Caller also reported.
She has also endorsed polygamous and polyamorous relationships — that is, being married or in a relationship with multiple partners at once.
One of the reasons Trump is backing the liberal commissioner is due to backroom deal-making. An agreement made in the Senate used Feldblum as a sort of bargaining chip in exchange for assistance with other presidential nominees.
“Feldblum was renominated pursuant to a deal between Senate Democrats and the Trump White House, through which two Republican appointees will be confirmed without opposition on the condition that Feldblum is allowed to remain in her post,” The Daily Caller said.
Nationally known conservatives including Sens. Marco Rubio, James Lankford, Steve Daines and Mike Lee are now joining together to block Feldblum’s nomination, even though she’s backed by a Republican president.
They have leverage, too: Without their support, her confirmation would be significantly more difficult.
“The four lawmakers are withholding support from a unanimous consent agreement necessary for her confirmation,” stated The Daily Caller.
“The agreement would package Feldblum’s nomination with two other Republican appointees to the EEOC, allowing the Senate to process all three nominees on a single up-or-down vote,” the outlet reported.
President Trump may be doing far more good than the left gives him credit for, but he is also fallible. His support for a nominee with radically liberal views on marriage and religious freedom may be one of those failings, and it might be up to principled conservatives to hold his feet to the fire.
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