Chai Feldblum redux?

When I tried in late 2017 to rally conservatives to oppose the nomination of Chai Feldblum for another term as EEOC commissioner, I was under no illusion that, if her nomination failed, Felblum’s place would be taken by a moderate. Even in a Republican administration, Democrats are entitled to fill a share of commissioner positions, and it is left up to them to select those nominees, subject to Senate approval.

However, I did hope that, as long as the GOP controlled the Senate, future Democratic nominees would be less radical than Feldblum. After all, Feldblum was the architect of President Obama’s aggressive LGBT agenda.

First, she succeeded in having the Commission take the position that Title VII protects gays and lesbians from employment discrimination, contrary to nearly half a century of correct interpretation. Next, she led the charge to require employers to grant certain men access to women’s restrooms at the workplace.

Feldblum also contended that her radical LGBT agenda should trump religious freedom. She stated that when religious liberty and “sexual liberty” conflict, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

Feldblum’s radicalism eventually caused her nomination to fail. Sen. Mike Lee played a major role in bringing about that outcome.

Now, however, the Democrats have included a new Chai Feldblum in a package of nominees for the EEOC and NLRB that the Trump administration has presented to the Senate. Their pick is Jocelyn Samuels, head of a think tank on sexual orientation and gender-identity policy.

Like Feldblum, Samuels is a force behind Obama’s LGBT agenda. As this blurb from her think tank euphemistically puts it, “she was an architect of numerous government policies applying federal law to remedy discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

The Democrats’ decision to select Samuels seems, in part, like an in-your-face gesture directed at religious conservatives generally and Senators like Mike Lee particularly. The Dems are shoving another LGBT activist — the closest thing to Feldblum they can find — down the throats of defenders of religious freedom. Unfortunately, the Trump administration declined to resist.

The key to the defeat of Feldblum’s nomination was the fact that she had openly expressed disdain for the religious rights of those whom the LGBT movement wishes to run roughshod over. Samuels may not have made similarly strident pronouncements.

It shouldn’t matter whether she has. The test should be whether the positions she has taken, both in government and at the think tank, regarding specific matters of law and policy reflect the same disregard for religious rights that Feldblum was candid enough to state. If so, she should be opposed as strenuously as Feldblum was.

I hope Republican Senators will take a very close look at this nominee, and not mindlessly swallow the contents of the package they have been fed.

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