Republican Presses Trump Judicial Pick on His Religious Sermons

A Senate Judiciary Committee Republican questioned one of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees about his religious views based on sermons and teachings he gave as a church elder that covered topics such as premarital sex in Christianity and women in Christian marriage.

In an unusual line of questioning, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) pressed Justin Olson for several minutes at a hearing on Wednesday about the teachings that occurred within the past decade while he was an ordained elder of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, and whether his personal beliefs align with them.

“My obligation is to try to understand you, ‘cause this is a lifetime appointment,” Kennedy said to Olson, who’s up for a judgeship in Indiana.

Kennedy asked Olson whether he believes people with physical or developmental disabilities shouldn’t be allowed to marry, based on a 2015 sermon in which Olson discussed “persons with physical disabilities that might prevent the robust marriage that we’re called to.”

Olson said that he was speaking to why some people don’t get married, “not as a kind of reason why someone shouldn’t.” “It was illustrative of the condition in which some find themselves, but certainly not in any stretch of the imagination suggesting that they couldn’t or shouldn’t, merely that in some cases, they don’t,” he said.

He faced additional questioning from Kennedy on a 2022 sermon he gave in which he referred to “transgenderism, homosexuality, fornication, and all sorts of sexual perversions.”

Asked whether he believes fornication is a form of “sexual perversion,” Olson said that the doctrine of the church he attended at the time was that fornication, or “any sexual act” outside of marriage, is a sin.

Kennedy pressed Olson on whether he believes premarital sex is a sexual perversion. Olson said that his personal, religious views were “for the edification of the people” he was preaching to, and that as a judge they “wouldn’t be the object of what I would rule upon.”

A 2015 sermon in which Olson said that God “has called wives to be subject to their husband” and to “serve the good of your husband and support his calling,” led to a question from Kennedy on whether Olson believes “Christian marriage provides that women have to be subservient to their husbands.”

Olson again referred to his church’s understanding of “what Christian marriage ought to look like,” that he was quoting a passage from the Bible and that he believes “every word of the Bible.”

Asked by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) what would guide him as a judge if confirmed, Olson said that he would be bound by the “United States Constitution, applicable federal and state statutes, and binding precedent.”

Kennedy is known for his probing questioning of presidential nominees from both parties, though his “pop quiz"-like questions tend to focus on legal doctrines and procedure.

A nominee’s past sermons is an uncommon subject of scrutiny for the Senate review process of judicial nominees.

Olson is a lawyer at Kroger Gardis & Regas, LLP who Trump has tapped for the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.

Olson represented a group of three female swimmers who sued the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard College and others in Boston federal court this year over the participation of their teammate, transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, in the 2022 Ivy League Championships. Trump praised Olson for his work “fighting tirelessly to keep men out of women’s sports.”

Olson also filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court on behalf of Riley Gaines and other athletes in a challenge to state laws banning transgender women from participating in female sports.

He previously worked as an assistant US attorney for civil cases at the Southern District of Indiana, according to his law firm biography.