Ron DeSantis appoints hate group member to state appeals court

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has appointed anti-LGBTQ+ attorney Roger Gannam to serve as a judge on Florida’s Sixth District Court of Appeals. Gannam previously worked for the Liberty Counsel, an anti-LGBTQ+ legal advocacy group that opposes any expansion of queer civil rights and has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SLPC).

DeSantis appointed Gannam to fill the court’s vacancy after the governor elevated its former Chief Judge Meredith Sasso to the Florida Supreme Court last May. He will now sit amongst its nine justices.

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Gannam began working for Liberty Counsel in 2014 and served as Liberty Counsel’s assistant vice president of legal affairs beginning in 2016. While working for the Liberty Counsel, Gannam wrote a column for the Florida Times-Union that said that a trans-inclusive anti-discrimination policy would lead to sexual assaults against women in bathrooms and changing areas.

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Though the Liberty Counsel claims to take cases involving “religious freedom,” it actively opposes same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination laws, and gender-affirming therapy — something it refers to as “mutilation.” Liberty Counsel also advocates for conversion therapy, the widely disavowed form of psychological torture that purports to change people’s sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Liberty Counsel has claimed that LGBTQ+ “pedophiles” seek to “indoctrinate” kids and society at large to embrace and reward “perversion” and “harmful sexual behavior.” The group says same-sex marriage causes disease and destroys “our very social fabric.” It also calls homosexuals “immoral” and “unnatural,” the SLPC noted.

Nikki Fried, Chair of the Florida Democratic Party, criticized Gannam’s appointment to the appeals court, calling it “outrageous.”

“After [Republican Florida Gov.] Ron [DeSantis] threw out a democratically elected State Attorney this week, he has continued his crusade to consolidate the courts and stack the judicial bench with activist judges like Roger Gannam, who has a long history of attacking women’s rights and the LGBTQ+ community,” Fried said, according to The Ledger.

“How can the people of Florida seriously expect a fair and impartial hearing when he can’t even answer a question about his own biases?” Fried added. “He should be nowhere near a courtroom — in Florida or anywhere else.”

In early August, it was revealed that DeSantis and his 2024 presidential campaign affiliates had given $95,000 to The Family Leader Foundation, an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group in Iowa.