Saturday, September 24, 2016

Meet Trump's Horrifying Evangelical Advisory Board - And Now Santorum? Really!?!


June 23 2016
 
 
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 After the Orlando tragedy, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he had our backs. Many LGBT folks laughed at that assertion and were proved right a week and a half later. After hosting a New York gathering Tuesday with some of the nation's most prominent evangelical Christians, Trump announced his Evangelical Executive Advisory Board. The group consists of some of the most homophobic Christian leaders operating today. Don't believe us? Here's a dossier on each of Trump's fundie — as in fundamentalist; the candidate is very short on actual funds these days — friends:

Michele Bachmann
 
Most politically aware LGBT people know of this former Minnesota congresswoman. Bachmann, who retired in January 2015, made opposition to marriage equality a central tenet of her congressional tenure. She pushed for her state to alter its constitution to ban same-sex marriage, but her efforts failed. She also said LGBT activists were bringing about the end of the world and that gay people are demons who prey on children. Bachmann, along with her husband, Marcus, also ran a so-called conversion therapy clinic where homophobic parents were duped into thinking they could change their children's sexual orientation or gender identity. Bachmann took her crazy obsession with all things gay and ran for president in 2012 but ultimately crashed and burned. She's still up to no good, using her Twitter account to push race-baiting.


James Dobson
 
This activist founded Focus on the Family in 1977 and then, in 1998, Love Won Out, a group that claims it can “cure” homosexuality. He’s written books, he runs a newsletter, and his radio show airs on thousands of stations. All that media pushes a regular message — LGBT people are sick and after your kids.


 
Kenneth Copeland
 
This Texas televangelist hates vaccines but loves Ted Cruz, saying God told him the antigay senator would be our next president. Guess God was wrong, because Copeland is now backing Trump and is part of this unholy advisory board. Copeland also thinks the Supreme Court ruling that established marriage equality nationwide was a huge mistake and lays out how it was wrong on "moral, constitutional, and structural" levels.


Richard Land

This influential president of North Carolina's Southern Evangelical Seminary, Land is as scary as they come. His radio show was canceled after he made remarks about Trayvon Martin that were not only racist, but plagiarized. Land also called gay people "Satanic" and signed the antigay, anti-choice "Manhattan Declaration" in 2009.


Harry Jackson
 
A Maryland minister with a flair for incendiary antigay statements, Jackson has terrorized Washington, D.C.'s LGBT community for years. He long fought marriage equality in the nation's capital, comparing it to the work of Hitler. He's called same-sex marriage the country's "walking pneumonia." Here's another doozy: "Folks who cannot reproduce want to recruit your kids. ... What we're facing is a radical force of people who want to change the way America looks the next 20 years, and we need to stop this thing now. ... We need to steal back the rainbow — we can't let the gays have it." Watch Jackson rail against same-sex marriage: 


 
Published on Apr 28, 2009 
 
Bishop Harry Jackson, of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Maryland, held a small rally for his followers (at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC) to protest the unanimous vote by the City Council to recognize same-sex marriages that have been legally performed in other states. 
 
Current City Councilman and former Mayor Marion Barry states here that he is united with the churches against gay marriages, chanting, "No Same-Sex Marriage in DC." He calls himself a moral politician and says that he is for civil unions. His opposition to this bill is surprising to many because he is reported to have co-sponsored the very bill that he is now stating that he is opposed to.   
 
Several other preachers join them and repeatedly call gay marriages a perversion and closely associate gay sex and gay relationships with evil, immoral behavior such as incest and pedophilia. Numerous times Jackson and others say that same-sex marriage has nothing to do with civil rights, and that equating interracial marriage and the civil rights struggle of blacks is wrong and offensive. 
 
Tony Perkins and others appear in Part 2 of this video along with a stunning prayer service directed at the building that houses the City Council.  



Ronnie Floyd
 
Another Texas preacher with an obsession with LGBT people, Floyd actually wrote a whole book on the subject — 2004's The Gay Agenda — where he blamed us for dividing American culture. He's also written that "Satan has taken his tool of homosexuality, a gross and evil sin, and done a con job on the American culture."

Robert Jeffress
 
Also from Texas (we're sensing a pattern here!), Jeffress has a long C.V. of hate. Here's a roundup of his best quotes from People for the American Way: Gay people are "perverse" individuals who abuse children; homosexuality is a "miserable lifestyle" and on par with bestiality; gays use "brainwashing techniques"; he called same-sex relationships a "filthy practice" and said gays "are engaged in the most destestable, unclean, abominable acts you can imagine." And did you know that we "will pave the way for the future world dictator, the Antichrist"? Now you do.

James Robison
 
This televangelist won't be coming to your same-sex wedding. He wrote this of men marrying men and women marrying women: "Redefining marriage is a far bigger issue than some may realize. It is in fact an assault not only on truth, natural acts, and marriage, but an attack on the very possibility that God gave His creation a reliable standard to follow." Ouch! No cake for you, James.

And NOW - The Republican presidential nominee has added his former rival, Rick Santorum,  as an advisor to his campaign.

 


Trump has hired the former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, as an advisor for his Catholic Advisory Council. 

Santorum, who ended his campaign for president in February, is one of 35 people slated for the council. In a press release announcing the council, Trump included a list of "issues of importance to Catholics." The topics on the list include religious liberty, pro-life, judicial nominations, education, healthcare, jobs and taxation, and safety and security. 

 
In June, Santorum signed an antigay "pledge in solidarity to defend marriage," that claims marriage should only exist "between one man and one woman." Santorum has also said he would reinstate the ban on 'don't ask don't tell.' The former U.S. Senator has also defended 'religious liberty' in the past, and it is something that Trump comments on, in his list of "issues of importance to Catholics." 

On the topic of religious liberty, Trump said, "Religious liberty is enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is our first liberty and provides the most important protection in that it protects our right of conscience. Activist judges and executive orders issued by Presidents who have no regard for the Constitution have put these protections in jeopardy. If I am elected president and Congress passes the First Amendment Defense Act, I will sign it to protect the deeply held religious beliefs of Catholics and the beliefs of Americans of all faiths. The Little Sisters of the Poor, or any religious order for that matter, will always have their religious liberty protected on my watch and will not have to face bullying from the government because of their religious beliefs."

In June, Trump announced the launch of his Evangelical Executive Advisory Board. Michelle Bachman, one of the most outspoken opponents of marriage equality, is on the evangelical advisory board. 

Friday Trump announced an updated list of his Supreme Court nominee picks. Several of Trump's choices on the list have an anti-LGBT track record.

Read more articles from the Advocate, here.

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