Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo, two of the most far right Christian conservatives in the former Trump administration are pursuing possible 2024 GOP presidential runs by appearing at some of the most anti-LGBTQ events on the Republican political circuit.
On Friday both the former vice president and former secretary of state will speak at The Family Leader’s Summit in Iowa. The event includes an anti-LGBTQ hate group as a sponsor. The Family Leader, while not a Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate group, has for years worked to attack LGBTQ Americans.
The Family Leader has been linked to both Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council, the latter being an anti-LGBTQ hate group. Family Leader founder Bob Vander Plaats is among the more homophobic Christian activists in the nation.
“He has publicly compared homosexuality to pedophilia, compared the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of same-sex marriage to past rulings on slavery, and supported conversion therapy to ‘cure’ LGBTQ youth,” a 2015 op-ed in the Des Moines Register recorded. “His organization, the Family Leader, has long been affiliated with the Family Research Council, an anti-gay hate group (as designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center). He has consistently orchestrated attacks against those providing resources and education to prevent the bullying of LGBTQ students. And earlier this month, Vander Plaats delivered a keynote address at an event with pastor Kevin Swanson, who says the Bible calls for the punishment of homosexuality by death.”
Like Vander Plaats and The Family Leader, Pence and Pompeo are Christian dominionists, eager to sever the wall between church and state and trying to create a theocratic nation with laws based on the Bible.
Both Pence and Pompeo attended an End-Times Bible study group at the White House, and talk very openly about their faith and how it informs everything they do.