Grasz is Another Anti-LGBTQ, Anti-Women’s Rights Nominee
WASHINGTON, D.C., October 4 – Alliance for Justice today released its report on the record of Leonard Steven Grasz, President Trump’s nominee for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. AFJ President Nan Aron issued the following statement:
“It’s no coincidence that in nominating Steve Grasz, Donald Trump has chosen another anti-LGBTQ, anti-women’s rights nominee for the federal bench. Grasz has fought for employers to be able to discriminate against LGBTQ workers. He fought against funding for abortions required under federal law for women who are victims of rape and incest. His nomination is another in a long line of anti-LGBTQ rights, anti-women’s rights judicial nominations that President Trump has made, and once again it reveals the Trump Administration’s agenda to undermine hard-won rights for millions of Americans.”
Among other things, the AFJ report notes:
- Grasz is a director of the Nebraska Family Alliance, an organization that has applauded the mass closings of clinics that offer women’s reproductive services, condemned Supreme Court decisions that protect women’s rights, claimed that abortion rights put “women’s lives at risk,” and advocated for the dangerous practice of “conversion therapy” imposed on LGBTQ youth.
- Grasz has written that the historic denial of civil rights to Native Americans and African Americans is comparable to the denial of civil rights to aborted fetuses.
- As Chief Deputy Attorney General of Nebraska, Grasz defended laws banning abortion procedures as well as laws prohibiting the use of public funds for state grants to organizations that provided abortion-related services. His office fought the federal mandate requiring public financing for abortions for low-income patients who are victims of rape and incest.
- While serving in the Nebraska Department of Justice, Grasz petitioned the Nebraska Board of Education to require that evolution be taught not as “objective fact” but as theory, arguing that teaching evolution as fact interfered with religious rights.
- Grasz has vigorously advocated for the death penalty in Nebraska, fighting to reinstate the practice even after the state legislature repealed capital punishment statutes.
- Serving on an Omaha city government panel, Grasz pushed for a measure that would have allowed employers to discriminate against LGBTQ employees under the guise of religious liberty.
- Grasz has implied that the Roe decision has led to an increase in the murder of newborns.