GOP Presumptive Nominee Kicks Off ‘New’ Campaign by Spending Day in Closed-Door 7-Hour Meeting With America’s Most Anti-LGBT Professionals
Donald Trump on Tuesday will meet behind closed doors with 400 of America’s Christian conservatives who have devoted their lives to Jesus Christ and their professional careers to demonizing LGBT people. Among those who follow the culture wars, the names are foundational. Every person invited has had an intentionally negative, often dangerous and extremely harmful impact on LGBT people and the LGBT community.
Among them, James Dobson, who founded both Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. Tony Perkins, who turned Dobson’s Family Research Council into a certified anti-gay hate group. Tim Wildmon, head of the anti-gay hate group American Family Association. Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America. Televangelist Pat Robertson, who blamed 9/11 on gay people. Ralph Reed, who headed Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, and now runs the Faith & Freedom Coalition. Ronnie Floyd, president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Family Leader president Bob Vander Plaats. American Values president Gary Bauer. Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.
Ben Carson, who has endorsed Trump and is a surrogate for the campaign, is actively involved in planning the meeting. Carson months ago accepted a position as chairman of MyFaithVotes.
Trump is also expected to announce today a coalition of faith leaders, possibly chaired by Mike Huckabee, who will form a group of Christian extremists in support of Trump.
TIME, which first reported on the meeting last month, calls it a “step that could lead to an eventual embrace of the presumptive Republican nominee.”
Today’s event is titled, “A Conversation About America’s Future with Donald Trump and Ben Carson.” Carson is expected to act as moderator and a bridge between Trump and the Christian conservatives.
Michelangelo Signorile, who wrote about today’s meeting at The Huffington Post earlier this month, offers this warning: “No matter what Trump has said in the past, or what the media or desperate gay Republicans may say now, there’s no question that Trump must bow to an anti-LGBT agenda if he wants to win the presidency. That makes him a mortal danger to LGBT equality.”
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