President Trump’s embattled nominee for Army secretary hit back Tuesday at the “liberal left” for twisting and misrepresenting his past comments about transgender rights and Islam.
Tennessee state Sen. Mark Green denied on Facebook that he had ever implied transgender people were an evil that needs to be crushed, and said he has never tried to push his Christian faith on anyone, following numerous allegations from civil rights groups.
“The liberal left has cut and spliced my words about terrorism and ISIS blatantly falsifying what I’ve said,” wrote Green, 52, a former Army special operations flight surgeon who was nominated by the president earlier this month to be the service’s top civilian leader.
Green, a devout Christian and son of a southern Baptist pastor, shared an article with the post claiming “homosexual groups” are attacking him because of his faith.
“It would seem that this gentleman has figured out why certain people are cutting and splicing my words to paint me as a hater,” Green wrote about the posted article and its author. “It will not stand.”
His nomination has yet to make its way to the Senate, where Republicans control a majority of seats and could approve Green in a party-line vote.
On Monday, transgender reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner joined four liberal groups opposing Green’s nomination due to political comments he has made on video in recent years, including a claim that most psychiatrists view transgenderism as a disease.
“He’s made some of the most anti-LGBT statements ever — calling me, a trans person, as a disease. I have to tell Mark Green, I don’t have a disease, OK?” Jenner said during a Fox News interview.
It was unclear Tuesday what effect the controversy might have in the Senate.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said members of the Armed Services Committee, which would hold the initial hearing on the nomination, are just beginning to review Green’s record and that he had no position yet. But Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said earlier this month she was worried.
GLAAD, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocate and media monitoring group, called on senators this month to reject the nomination over Green’s warning about transgender bathroom rights during a radio interview last year.
“There are 300,000 rapes in the United States every year, 300,000 women who are sexually assaulted by predators, and we know this, it is documented, it’s factual,” Green said. “To think that some young guy isn’t going to take advantage of the system where we’re going to allow guys to go into the women’s bathroom, to think that that’s not going to happen is just ridiculous.”
Quoting a Bible verse, Green said he would fight against that to protect women and ensure “people who do wrong are crushed, evil is crushed.”
The military announced last year it would allow transgender troops to serve openly, and the next secretary is likely to oversee the further enactment of that policy.
American Military Partner Association and the Human Rights Campaign, which also advocate for gay and transgender rights, have accused Green of extreme anti-gay and anti-transgender political views.
In past comments on video, Green said Tennessee could reject same-sex marriage despite a Supreme Court ruling legalizing it nationwide. He also compared views of two men marrying 30 years ago to views of infanticide today.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which bills itself as the country’s largest Muslim civil rights group, charged Green earlier this month with Islamophobia for comments he made to a Tea Party group last year about teaching about the religion in Tennessee public schools.
“When you start teaching [students] the pillars of Islam and you start teaching how to pray as a Muslim, that is over the top and we will not tolerate that in this state,” Green told the crowd.
