The FFRF Action Fund strongly opposes a slate of recently announced judicial nominations from the Trump administration.
Whitney Hermandorfer (6th Circuit), Joshua Divine (Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri), Zachary Bluestone (Eastern District of Missouri), Maria Lanahan (Eastern District of Missouri), and Cristian Stevens (Eastern District of Missouri) are unfit for lifetime positions on the federal bench due to the threat they pose to the separation of state and church. Each of these nominees sat for a hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, June 4.
Whitney Hermandorfer, 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals: During Hermandorfer’s time as the director of the Strategic Litigation Unit at the Office of the Tennessee Attorney General, she has prioritized a Christian nationalist approach to the law. She has defended Tennessee’s abortion ban and challenged President Biden-era regulations meant to solidify protections for late-stage pregnancies and to eradicate discrimination against transgender students in schools and colleges. A former clerk of Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, Hermandorfer has also taken a stance in favor of President Trump’s attempt to use executive power to abolish the constitutional right to birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants.
Joshua Divine, Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri: Divine has a history of espousing Christian nationalist views. In college, he wrote a series of op-eds reflecting this perspective, proclaiming that it is “impossible” for Christians to leave their religion at home and that they are “obliged ethically to impose their beliefs on others”; arguing for a ban on abortions with no exceptions for rape; and comparing homosexuality with bestiality and polygamy. Divine has been a staunch defender of discriminatory laws as Missouri’s solicitor general and director of Special Litigation. The former Clarence Thomas clerk and counsel to U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley has defended Missouri’s former abortion ban and a law banning gender-affirming care for minors.
Zachary Bluestone, Eastern District of Missouri: Bluestone, a former Missouri deputy solicitor general under Sen. Hawley, also spent time as a fellow at the James Wilson Institute. The Wilson Institute is a conservative think tank that advocates for natural law, which is the idea that there is a set of universal truths, principles and rules, historically tied to religion, that properly govern moral conduct. Its “Board of Scholars” includes figures like Mark David Hall, who authored a book explicitly defending Christian nationalism, and it has published articles arguing that critiques of state/church separation do not go far enough.
Maria Lanahan, Eastern District of Missouri: Lanahan currently serves as Missouri’s principal deputy solicitor general. In that role, she has served as co-counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a leading Christian nationalist outfit, in a lawsuit opposing local ordinances prohibiting conversion therapy on minors. Lanahan also teamed with anti-abortion groups to attempt to overturn the Food and Drug Administration’s classification of mifepristone as a safe and effective medication used in abortion care.
“These nominees would only add to the number of Christian nationalists in the federal judiciary,” says FFRF Action Fund President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Each is an extremist who can be expected to place dogma over civil liberties.”
FFRF Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization that develops and advocates for legislation, regulations and government programs to preserve the constitutional principle of separation between state and church. It also advocates for the rights and views of nonbelievers, endorses candidates for political office, and publicizes the views of elected officials concerning religious liberty issues.
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