Donald Trump and Marco Rubio will be in Orlando on August 12, the two-month anniversary of the Orlando massacre, not to honor the 49 victims of the worst anti-LGBTQ hate crime in American history, but to attend an event hosted by the extremist religious group American Renewal Project, which fights “homosexual totalitarianism” and LGBTQ equality “militants.”
The American Renewal Project, which is sponsored by the hate group American Family Association, is holding this “Rediscovering God in America” conference to rally against the LGBTQ community. The ARP and AFA are some of the most extreme anti-LGBTQ groups in the country, with speakers at their events regularly using terms such as “homofascism,” equating homosexuality with pedophilia, bestiality, and terrorism, saying that LGBTQ people are “demonic” and associated with the devil, advocating the criminalization of homosexuality, and even supporting violence against the LGBTQ community.
Marco Rubio, who was perhaps the most anti-LGBTQ candidate in the 2016 Republican primary, is the keynote speaker at the August 12 event. Invitations said that other speakers will include Mat Staver, who denounced memorials for the Orlando victims and said that LGBTQ equality could bring about a second civil war, David Barton, who claims that God is preventing a cure for HIV/AIDS to rightly kill gay people, Ken Graves, who said that “militant homofascism seeks to take over our land and make it Sodom” and that LGBTQ people are working with Muslim terrorists to create a “secular humanist caliphate,” Bill Federer, who also said that LGBTQ people are causing Muslim terrorists to take over America, and David Lane, who called the LGBTQ rights movement a “pagan onslaught” that “has threatened our utter destruction.”
LGBTQ activists have criticized Marco Rubio and Donald Trump for choosing to attend and speak at the American Renewal Project event. While Rubio has always been an active opponent of anti-LGBTQ rights, Trump has claimed throughout his campaign that he is better for LGBTQ people than Hillary Clinton, despite supporting North Carolina’s HB2, opposing marriage equality, and choosing one of the most anti-LGBTQ politicians in the country as his vice presidential running mate.
The Human Rights Campaign released a statement yesterday blasting Trump and Rubio for deciding to join anti-LGBTQ activists on the two-month anniversary of the Orlando shooting.
“Just when you think Donald Trump and Marco Rubio couldn’t go any lower, they announce plans to court anti-LGBTQ activists in Orlando,” said HRC Senior Vice President of Policy and Political Affairs JoDee Winterhof. “Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are going to seek votes from people who fundamentally believe we are not equal, who support dangerous and harmful conversion therapy and who have worked to export anti-LGBTQ hate abroad. Donald Trump would put at risk all the progress the LGBTQ community has made over the last eight years. And we know all too well that Marco Rubio – who has refused to stand up for LGBTQ Floridians time and again – would be his loyal accomplice. Because of elected officials like Marco Rubio, LGBTQ Floridians remain at risk of being fired or denied a job because of who they are or whom they love.”
