LGBTQ Nation: Senate confirms lifetime seat for Trump judicial appointee who compared being gay to bestiality
Issues
This excerpt is from a piece that originally ran on July 23, 2025.
In a tip sheet on Divine, progressive judicial advocacy group Alliance for Justice said that he “has built a legal career advancing hardline conservative positions that threaten to significantly undermine core constitutional protections related to civil rights, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ+ equality, environmental protections, and immigrant rights.”
As Alliance for Justice notes, Divine defended Missouri’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors and has published articles opposing the right to same-sex marriage. As a college newspaper columnist, Divine reportedly compared homosexuality to bestiality and “any form of sex that goes against the biological design of procreation and the nurturing of a family.” He argued that conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage do so not out of hate but because they are “opposed to a group receiving extra benefits.” In one 2010 column, he argued that conservative Christians are “obliged ethically to impose their beliefs on others.”
He has also virulently opposed reproductive freedom, defending Missouri’s near-total ban on abortion and representing the state in ongoing litigation opposing the FDA’s authority to regulate mifepristone, according to both Alliance for Justice and Reproductive Freedom for All.
The 35-year-old will now hold a lifetime seat on the court, potentially imposing his far-right agenda for decades to come.