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Watch: Kari Lake Ad Features Pastor Who Frames LGBTQ People as Sex-Obsessed Violent Criminals
In two weeks Arizona voters could elect a Trump-endorsed Republican and former TV news reporter who just approved an ad featuring what many would assume is a mild-mannered small business owner who apparently was thinking of voting for Democrat Katie Hobbs for governor but says she’s just “too liberal” so he has to vote for Kari Lake because of “President Biden’s” inflation.
Lake is a far-right extremist who says Democrats are pushing a “demonic agenda.” She is also anti-immigrant, an election denier, and an anti-science Christian nationalist who opposes mask or vaccine mandates, claims she has not been vaccinated, and promoted hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as “lifesaving drugs” in the fight against COVID-19. Lake opposes legal protections for LGBTQ people.
In reality, as Mother Jones‘ David Corn reveals, the man in the ad who describes himself as “a husband and father of five” and runs “a small business in Phoenix” is a viciously anti-LGBTQ pastor who as far back as 2014 has preached outrageous and dangerous lies about gay men.
Justin Erickson is the head of Hard Wired Coaching, but he is also a “homophobic bigot” who “has spread vicious falsehoods about gay and lesbian people, casting them as depraved, wicked, and criminally-inclined. He has vilified Islam. And his church, which holds services in the gym of a charter school, demands the subservience of women.”
He does all this as the “pastor at the fundamentalist Desert Bible Church in Scottsdale.”
According to Mother Jones, Pastor Erickson – most gay men will be surprised to learn – claims that three in ten gay men have had over 1000 different sexual partners, and some have over 300 different sexual partners every year, which means on average they have sex once a day six days a week 52 weeks a year.
If you’re math-inclined you’ll find the next statistic even more startling.
According to Erickson, most gay men, including those who have over 1000 sexual partners in their lives, don’t even live to be 40.
And half of them have AIDS, Erickson falsely claimed.
In fact, it’s all false, and according to Mother Jones, “reckless.”
“In a 2014 sermon on homosexuality,” Mother Jones reports, “Erickson proclaimed that ‘fifty percent of the homosexual LGBT-Now-Q community, 50 percent have AIDS. One in twenty are child molesters, on the sex offender registry.’ These numbers were way off. In 2014, Gallup found that about 9 million Americans self-identified as LGBT, and a different study concluded that about 700,000 gay and bisexual men were living with HIV, far fewer than half the gay and lesbian population. Moreover, Erickson’s stats about LGBT child molesters were dangerously false.”
“Under his math, about half of the 800,000 or so people on sex offender registries would have to be gay, yet according to one study, heterosexual pedophiles outnumbers homosexual pedophiles by 11-to-1. He was recklessly and inaccurately depicting LGBT people as threats to children.”
There’s more.
The man in the Kari Lake-approved ad has also claimed that “80 percent of homosexuals have STDs, and—how sad is this?—2 percent, 2 percent of homosexuals in the LGBT community make it to the age of 65. The average lifespan for an average person in our world is 75. Those is the LGBT community, most of them don’t make it to 39.”
All of these claims are false.
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Mother Jones reports there “seems to be no scientific basis for these claims. Though HIV still presented a health risk for gay men, the American Journal of Public Health in 2016 noted, ‘no general population-based survey, to the best of our knowledge, has examined whether self-identified lesbians, bisexuals, or gay men are more likely than are heterosexuals to experience early mortality.'”
“Erickson claimed that the ‘average homosexual has had in a lifetime over 500 sexual partners. Eighty percent admit that half of them are absolute total strangers. Thirty percent of those who commit homosexuality, 30 percent, have had over 1000 partners. Three hundred different people a year.’ A 2013 study found that the mean number of male sexual partners for gay and bisexual in the preceding year men was 2.3—which indicates the ‘average’ gay man does not have hundreds of sexual partners.”
What about that “homosexual love quarrel” claim?
Erickson says that in Los Angeles, the LAPD assume when they see a vicious, brutal murder, it’s the result of a “homosexual love quarrel.”
“The LAPD has a statistic,” Erickson claimed, “when they, when the officers come on to a crime scene and there is a murder and the murder itself has been an absolute bludgeoning, multiple stab wounds, multiple gunshot wounds, they immediately begin with the premise that this is a homosexual love quarrel.”
Lake has been highly criticized for her associations with other far-right extremists and extremism.
In August Lake was slammed for endorsing an antisemitic Oklahoma Republican candidate who supports a “white nationalist and neo-Nazi conspiracy theory that is a variation on the so-called ‘great replacement’ theory,” the Arizona Mirror reported.
“The theory, also known as the Kalergi Plan, posits that global elites — especially Jewish people — are trying to rid the world of white people through immigration and interracial breeding,” the Mirror explained. “The idea has led to deadly violence.”
Last week a Lake campaign aide tweeted an image of a bloody human sacrifice and wished everyone a “Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”
This week Lake threatened to shut down the Super Bowl in a rant with lies about immigrants.
“You want to tell me, that a bunch of football teams, owned by billionaires, are okay with fentanyl pouring across our border at a record level, killing young people? The No. 1 killer is fentanyl. 18-45. It’s killing a generation of people,” she said, calling for U.S. Military to go after immigrants crossing the border unlawfully.
One of the problems with Lake’s comments is fentanyl is not “pouring across our border at a record level” because of immigrants.
The vast majority of fentanyl being brought across the border into the U.S. is being trafficked for personal use and for illegal sales by U.S. citizens, not asylum-seeking immigrants.
Watch the Lake-approved ad below or at this link.
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Stephen Miller’s latest anti-immigrant rant is drawing attention, including from a well-known Catholic Jesuit priest, who appeared to liken the White House Deputy Chief of Staff’s remarks to those made by Hitler’s notorious Reich Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, in 1941.
Miller, one of the most powerful members of the Trump administration, is seen as the principal architect of the President’s anti-immigration and deportation policies.
“U.S. Marines on the streets of Los Angeles. Masked immigration officers at courthouses and popular restaurants. Bans on travelers from more than a dozen countries,” Reuters reported on Friday. “For senior White House aide Stephen Miller, the architect of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, things were going according to plan.”
READ MORE: ‘Dumb-Dumb’: Fox News Host Declares Rising Democrat a ‘Mental Deficient’ Amid Senate Buzz
Denouncing the city government of Los Angeles as “waging a campaign of insurrection against the federal government,” Miller on Friday painted a scenario without undocumented immigrants in remarks made to Fox News.
“Let’s be very clear,” he said. “What would Los Angeles look like without illegal aliens?”
“Here’s what it would look like: You would be able to see a doctor in the emergency room right away, no wait time, no problem. Your kids would go to a public school that had more money than they know what to do with. Classrooms would be half the size. Students who had special needs would get all the attention that they needed.”
“There would be no violent transnational gangs. There would be no cartels. There would be no Mexican Mafia. There would be no Sureños. There would be no MS-13 There would be no TdA.”
“You would be living in a city that would be safe, that would be clean, there would be no fentanyl, there would be no drug dens,” he alleged. “That could be the future Los Angeles could have, but the leaders in Los Angeles have formed an alliance with the cartels and their criminal aliens.”
READ MORE: Record Majority of Americans Support Immigration in Massive Blow to Trump Agenda
Some of Miller’s claims are incorrect. For example, public schools often receive state funding in part based on the number of students and their attendance rate. Fewer students in classrooms means fewer dollars. And federal funding is tied to the number of low-income students and students with disabilities.
Miller’s claims about fentanyl and “drug dens” also don’t hold up. Most fentanyl comes into the U.S. via U.S. citizens, according to the Cato Institute.
Father James Martin, editor-at-large for America Magazine, which is published by the Jesuits, responded to Miller’s remarks by posting a quote from Goebbels:
“The enemy is in our midst. What makes more sense than to at least make this plainly visible to our citizens?”
It’s not the first time Father Martin has responded to Miller’s anti-immigrant rants with a quote.
In April, he quoted the Bible:
“‘I was a stranger and you did not welcome me’ (Matthew 25).”
See Martin’s post and video of Miller’s remarks below or at this link.
“The enemy is in our midst. What makes more sense than to at least make this plainly visible to our citizens?” Joseph Goebbels, Nov 16, 1941. https://t.co/f6cHSLqlbU https://t.co/lACjN2F9Ql
— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) July 11, 2025
READ MORE: ‘Racial Profiling’: Border Czar Blasted for Claim ICE Can Detain for ‘Personal Appearance’
Image via Shutterstock
A record-high majority—nearly eight in ten Americans—now view immigration positively, with similarly strong support for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants—particularly those brought to the U.S. as children. The Gallup poll also found that most Americans favor maintaining or increasing current immigration levels.
Meanwhile, large segments of the public oppose expanding the number of immigration enforcement agents—a cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. Overall, just 35% of Americans approve of Trump’s immigration policies, while 65% disapprove.
Gallup’s report deals a major blow to the very core of President Donald Trump’s agenda, and his “One Big, Beautiful Bill” that dramatically increases spending on immigration enforcement, including detention camps, deportations, and removal, even to third-party countries.
RELATED: ‘Racial Profiling’: Border Czar Blasted for Claim ICE Can Detain for ‘Personal Appearance’
“Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today,” Gallup reported on Friday. “At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.”
When asked if immigration is generally a good thing or bad thing for the country, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults call it a good thing; a record-low 17% see it as a bad thing. pic.twitter.com/VCGVplgsE9
— Gallup (@Gallup) July 11, 2025
“These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups,” the top-rated pollster also reported.
Now, just 38% of Americans support deporting all undocumented immigrants, in vast contrast to the stated Trump agenda. That’s down from 47% last year.
In what could be seen as a warning to the GOP, Gallup notes that “the desire for less immigration has fallen among all party groups, but it is most pronounced among Republicans, down 40 percentage points over the past year to 48%.”
Just this week, several top Trump administration officials have continued to promote his anti-immigrant policies.
READ MORE: ‘Dumb-Dumb’: Fox News Host Declares Rising Democrat a ‘Mental Deficient’ Amid Senate Buzz
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins this week told reporters there will be “no amnesty” for undocumented farm workers while insisting adults on Medicaid could replace them.
“There will be no amnesty, the mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way, and we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation,” Secretary Rollins said.
Republican Senators have been promoting the Trump anti-immigrant agenda as well. On Thursday, U.S. Senator Ashley Moody (R-FL) called Democrats who oppose the often warrantless raids and tactics used by the DHS’s frequently masked ICE agents, “ignorant pawns of a subversive anarchist agenda.”
President Donald Trump’s and the Republican Party’s budget, which Trump signed into law last weekend, is tremendously unpopular, including his exponential expansion of immigration enforcement budgets, as well as aspects that gut vital social safety net programs like Medicaid and Medicare.
Critics praised Gallup’s findings.
“Nativism had its 6 months and now it’s clear that it’s not the answer,” wrote Cato Institute Director of Immigration Studies David J. Bier.
NBC News senior national political reporter Sahil Kapur, pointing to the Gallup statistics, called it “backlash politics.”
“Turns out, mass kidnappings and deportations are deeply unpopular when put into practice,” observed New York State Democratic Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher.
See the social media post above or at this link.
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Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s hand-picked border czar, Tom Homan, is facing backlash from legal and political experts after asserting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents do not need “probable cause” to detain individuals—and can do so based on factors like “personal appearance.”
“Look, people need to understand,” Homan told Fox News on Friday. ICE officers “don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain and question them.”
“They just need to tally the circumstances, right?” he claimed. “They just go through their observation, you know, get out typical facts based on the location, the occupation, their physical appearance, their actions.”
“A uniformed border police officer walks up to them, for instance, at a Home Depot. And they got all these … facts, plus the person walks away or runs away,” Homan said, offering one scenario. “Agents are trained. What they need to detain somebody temporarily and question them.”
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“It’s not probable cause,” he insisted. “It’s reasonable suspicion.”
“We’re trained on that. Every agent, every six months, gets Fourth Amendment training over and over again,” Homan said.
Legal experts blasted Homan’s remarks.
Professor of Law, former U.S. Attorney and MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst Joyce Vance summed up Homan’s remarks: “Racial profiling.”
“This is patently false,” declared U.S. Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY), also an attorney, “DHS has authority to question and search people coming into the country at points of entry. But ICE may not detain and question anyone without reasonable suspicion — and certainly not based on their physical appearance alone. This lawlessness must stop.”
Attorney and California Democratic state Senator Scott Wiener charged, “This is literally the definition of a white nationalist police state.”
U.S. Rep. Yvette Clark (D-NY) warned, “Trump’s thugs will racially profile you, then go on national television to brag about getting away with it.”
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Attorney and CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold explained, “Walking up to people (without threatening) is legal. But ‘detaining’ people without ‘reasonable suspicion’ of criminal or quasi-criminal activity is illegal. Racial profiling is not cause for the required reasonable suspicion. ‘Let me see your papers’ is un-American.”
U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), who, in a highly-publicized incident was forcibly removed and handcuffed by federal agents at a DHS press conference, wrote: “And there you have it. Under the Trump Administration, ICE and Border Patrol are being empowered to stop and question you based solely on how you look. No probable cause. No real reason. Just your ‘physical appearance.’ That’s not justice—it’s profiling.”
“They’re saying the quiet part out loud now,” wrote New York Democratic State Senator Gustavo Rivera. “Don’t get it twisted: if we let them keep doing this, they’ll find a reason to come for ANY ONE OF US soon enough.”
“THEY ARE ADMITTING IT,” wrote David J. Bier, Cato Institute Director of Immigration Studies and an expert on legal immigration, border security, and interior enforcement. “Homan is admitting to participating in a criminal conspiracy against the Constitution of the United States,” he alleged.
Max Flugrath, communications director for Fair Fight Action, wrote: “Trump’s Border Czar and Project 2025 contributor says ICE can detain anyone based on ‘suspicion’ and physical ‘appearance.’ That’s not immigration policy, it’s fascism.”
Watch the video below or at this link:
Homan: “People need to understand ICE officers and Border Patrol don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them … based on their physical appearance.” pic.twitter.com/aQzwepaHpk
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 11, 2025
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Image via Reuters
Stephen Miller’s Latest Rant Prompts Priest to Cite Goebbels Propaganda
Record Majority of Americans Support Immigration in Massive Blow to Trump Agenda
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