Republican senator grills Trump judicial nominee on religious sermons

By Nate Raymond

Dec 17 (Reuters) - An Indiana lawyer nominated by President Donald Trump to become a federal judge faced sharp questions on Wednesday from a Republican senator about church sermons he delivered describing pre-marital sex as a category of "sexual perversions" and suggesting wives should be subservient to their husbands.

Justin Olson was one of three district court nominees to appear before the Republican-led U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which throughout Trump's second term in office has repeatedly signed off on conservatives he has put forward to serve as life-tenured federal judges.

Unlike previous hearings this year, Olson's appearance was notable because the toughest questions he faced did not come from Democrats but rather from a member of Trump's own party, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana.

"My obligation is to try to understand you, because this is a lifetime appointment," Kennedy said.

Trump had announced Olson's nomination to fill a seat in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana last month, saying the Kroger Gardis & Regas attorney "has been fighting tirelessly to keep men out of women’s sports."

Olson, along with other lawyers, has been representing former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines and other current and former college athletes in a lawsuit challenging now-rescinded NCAA policies that allowed transgender women to compete in women's sports as long as they met testosterone limits on a sport-by-sport basis.

Kennedy, who at times during Trump's first term voted against or doomed a judicial nominee with his questioning, focused on Olson's decade of sermons as an ordained elder of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, starting with a 2015 talk he delivered in which Olson discussed "persons with physical disabilities that might prevent the robust marriage that we're called to."

"You believe folks with handicaps and physical disabilities should not be able to marry?" Kennedy asked.

Olson said no, saying he was speaking about why some people do not get married, "not as a kind of reason why someone shouldn't."

Kennedy then brought up a 2022 sermon in which Olson referred to "transgenderism, homosexuality, fornication, and all sorts of sexual perversions."

Asked if he believed fornication was a form of sexual perversion, Olson said his church teaches that any sexual act outside marriage is a sin.

Kennedy then pressed Olson on a 2015 church talk he delivered in which he said God "has called wives to be subject to their husband" and "serve good of your husband and support his calling."

"You believe Christian marriage provides that women have to be subservient to their husbands?" Kennedy asked.

Olson said he was "describing our church’s understanding of what Christian marriage ought to look like." He said had been quoting the Bible, and added: "I believe every word of the Bible."

After Kennedy was done questioning Olson, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, asked the nominee to clarify what authority he would be bound to as a member of the judiciary.

"My highest legal authority is to my nation, and that nation is governed by the United States Constitution," Olson said.

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