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Justin Olson was asked to explain his 2015 suggestion that disabled people might be incapable of “the robust marriage that we’re called to.” He did not do a good job.
By Jay Willis December 17, 2025
On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee convened for its final meeting on President Donald Trump’s judicial nominations before lawmakers head home for the holidays. Among the nominees who appeared before the panel was Justin Olson, an Indianapolis lawyer whom Trump has nominated to a district court judgeship in Indiana.
In many ways, Olson is typical of the ambitious lawyers the Trump administration has been nominating of late: membership in the Federalist Society, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the National Republican Lawyers Association, and so on. In his answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s standard questionnaire, Olson described himself as a “specialist” in litigating a very particular type of Title IX case: those designed to bar transgender athletes from competing in college sports. One of his clients is Riley Gaines, the former University of Kentucky swimmer who is now testing whether it is possible to launch an entire career in right-wing media by virtue of having finished a 200-yard freestyle race in fifth place.
During the hearing, though, Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy focused on a different aspect of Olson’s résumé: his history as an ordained elder in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. (Olson said he is “no longer active.”) Kennedy asked Olson about a sermon he gave in August 2015 in which Olson apparently asserted that marriage was not intended for all people, including—here, Kennedy emphasized that he was quoting Olson directly—“our handicapped friends or our persons with physical disabilities that might prevent the robust marriage that we’re called to.” Kennedy turned back to Olson. “Did you say that?”
“I think I did, senator, yes,” Olson replied. (Earlier in their exchange, Olson had clarified that based on the date, a “sermon” he gave in August 2015 would likely have been “a Sunday school lecture”—a detail I assume he very much regretted volunteering at that moment.)
https://ballsandstrikes.org/nominations/justin-olson-senate-judiciary-committee-hearing/
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Trump Judicial Nominee Has Some Complicated Thoughts About Disabled People Getting Married