Two days after a bloodbath at an Orlando LGBT nightclub by a lone gunman, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump tweeted a “thanks” to the LGBT group for what he apparently believes is help for his candidacy.
The tweet included the road, “I'll battle for you whereas Hillary brings in additional individuals that may threaten your freedoms and beliefs.”
A week later, Trump met with tons of of conservative evangelical leaders in New York Metropolis at an invitation-only event organized by former presidential candidate Ben Carson, who was working at the side of different teams together with the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBT hate group. On the occasion, Trump referred to as spiritual liberty “the No. 1 query,” and he promised to nominate antiabortion Supreme Courtroom justices.
Trump’s marketing campaign additionally released a list of people who would make up his evangelical advisory board, and it consists of a number of who're no associates of LGBT individuals:
Michele Bachmann: A former Congresswoman, Bachmann has a status for making damaging claims about and displaying unusual conduct towards LGBT individuals. She has stated that LGBT individuals “goal youngsters”; has claimed that two constituents who bumped into her in a toilet at a city corridor assembly have been “holding her towards her will” (the ladies in query have been Pamela Arnold, companion of famed Arctic explorer Ann Bancroft and a former nun); and was noticed hiding behind some bushes at a rally opposing her modification to outlaw same-sex marriage (she claimed she had sore ft and couldn’t stand anymore). “This isn't humorous. It’s a really unhappy life,” Bachmann has said of homosexuality. “It’s a part of Devil, I feel, to say that that is homosexual.” On the time, she was talking about her lesbian stepsister. In 2014, Bachmann accused the “homosexual group” of pushing “deviancy,” “tyranny” and youngster rape.
Tim Clinton: Clinton, president of the American Affiliation of Christian Counselors, has advocated (PDF) for so-called “ex-gay” therapy, a dangerous pseudoscience that claims to have the ability to make LGBT individuals heterosexual. In a 2009 “reality sheet” titled “Homosexuality,” Clinton listed four steps for “Freedom from Homosexuality.” They included ending gay relationships and selecting to not frequent locations that contain gay relationship or actions. She additionally referred to as to “handle the problems” which will have “brought about” homosexuality, together with a “deficit in relationship” with a mum or dad of the identical intercourse or “previous sexual abuse” –– widespread themes within the ex-gay group. The 2014 Code of Ethics (PDF) for the AACC states, “Christian counselors don't condone or advocate for the pursuit of or lively involvement in gay, bisexual or transgendered behaviors and life.”
James Dobson: Founding father of the right-wing Christian powerhouse Concentrate on the Household, Dobson and Concentrate on the Household have been well-known for anti-LGBT views, together with claiming homosexuality was “preventable” and “treatable.” A robust supporter of ex-gay remedy, Give attention to the Household launched the “Love Gained Out” ex-gay ministry in 1998 beneath the management of John Paulk, who was later photographed at a homosexual bar and left the ministry in 2003. Dobson, who now has an unbiased radio present, has referred to homosexuality as “disordered” and ensuing from “early developmental issues.” He wrote in 2015 that the “gay activist motion” is bent on “overturning legal guidelines prohibiting pedophilia” and that with same-sex marriage comes the autumn of Western civilization. He additionally claimed that acceptance of bisexuality meant acceptance of sexual relations between each genders “in teams.” Dobson has claimed that, “Homosexuals are usually not monogamous. They need to destroy the establishment of marriage” which can “destroy the Earth.” Dobson has additionally distorted legitimate research to push his anti-LGBT views.
Ronnie Floyd: Floyd is a pastor at Cross Church in Arkansas and the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). On the 2015 gathering of the Conference, Floyd said that “We're in religious warfare” towards homosexual marriage. He's additionally the writer of a ebook titled The Gay Agenda, a reference to a widespread conspiracy concept that claims LGBT individuals’s work for equality is definitely a ploy to take over the world. In response to Floyd’s ebook, “if left unopposed [the gay agenda] will annihilate the household as we all know it” and that “proponents of the homosexual way of life have declared conflict towards our tradition they usually have an agenda.” Final yr, SBC formally minimize ties with a California church due to the latter’s help of LGBT individuals. The church “walked away from us as Southern Baptists,” Floyd stated, “So it's with compassion that I might attraction to them to rethink their choice, principally their place associated to the Phrase of God on homosexuality.” The SBC’s 2016 resolutions that emerged from its current annual gathering stated that final yr’s Supreme Courtroom ruling on same-sex marriage “does violence to the Structure.”
Jack Graham: Graham is a former president of the SBC and the present pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, which fought to repeal an LGBT rights ordinance in 2012. When requested to answer the 2015 Supreme Courtroom ruling that legalized same-sex marriage, Graham said, “[W]e won't settle for, nor adhere to, and authorized redefinition of marriage issued by any political or judicial physique, together with the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.” And although he claims that “we affirm our love for all individuals,” “we can't and won't affirm the ethical acceptability of gay conduct.”
Harry Jackson: Pentecostal Bishop Harry Jackson is a outstanding campaigner towards marriage equality who led the unsuccessful battle towards it in Washington D.C., working intently with the Nationwide Group for Marriage. Jackson can also be a longtime ally of anti-LGBT hate group FRC, and co-wrote a ebook with FRC director Tony Perkins. Jackson, who has labored to construct a multi-racial spiritual proper motion through the use of anti-LGBT and anti-abortion sentiment as a wedge between Black churchgoers and their supporters within the Civil Rights motion, helps the so-called “Seven Mountains” doctrine, which requires Christian domination over the seven cultural mountains of society: media, schooling, enterprise, arts and leisure, household, faith, and authorities. He has referred to as homosexual marriage a part of a “satanic plot” to destroy “our seed,” claimed that homosexual individuals can't reproduce, so they need to “recruit.” Jackson has also said that homosexual marriage is an “assault” and that the “Enemy” (Devil) needs it to be a seed planted on this era that “corrupts, perverts and pollutes society.”
Robert Jeffress: Jeffress is one other megachurch pastor based mostly in Texas. Jeffress has an extended historical past of anti-LGBT rhetoric. He has claimed that “70% of the homosexual inhabitants” has AIDS; that homosexual individuals reside a “miserable lifestyle”; and linked homosexuality to pedophilia. “There are a disproportionate quantity of assaults towards youngsters by homosexuals than by heterosexuals…and the reason being very clear: homosexuality is perverse. It represents a degradation of an individual’s thoughts and if an individual will sink that low,” Jeffress stated, “there isn't any telling to no matter sins he'll commit as nicely.”
Richard Land: Land is a former director of the SBC’s Ethics and Spiritual Liberty Fee. Land additionally has a popularity for anti-LGBT statements. He has claimed that homosexuality causes destruction in human society and the “gay way of life” additionally causes destruction. He has claimed that LGBT individuals “recruit” youngsters for “gay golf equipment” and peddled the parable that homosexual individuals don’t reside so long as heterosexual and in addition claimed that LGBT individuals are out to “destroy marriage.” As present president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, he has linked homosexuality to pedophilia and warned that permitting homosexual Scout masters is “a grave and harmful mistake.” He tried to melt the blow by implying that each one grownup males are apparently interested in younger teenagers, so it will even be a mistake to place heterosexual males in command of Woman Scout troops.
The members of the advisory board will convene regularly, and can lead a “much larger Faith and Cultural Advisory Committee” that will probably be introduced later this month.
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