Scroll To Top
Election

Meet Trump's Horrifying Evangelical Advisory Board

Meet Trump's Horrifying Evangelical Advisory Board

Trump

Donald Trump says he's a friend of the gays, but he just got in bed with some of our worst enemies.

Nbroverman

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:

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.

Nbroverman
Advocate Channel - The Pride StoreOut / Advocate Magazine - Fellow Travelers & Jamie Lee Curtis

From our Sponsors

Most Popular

Latest Stories

Neal Broverman

Neal Broverman is the Editorial Director, Print of Pride Media, publishers of The Advocate, Out, Out Traveler, and Plus, spending more than 20 years in journalism. He indulges his interest in transportation and urban planning with regular contributions to Los Angeles magazine, and his work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He lives in the City of Angels with his husband, children, and their chiweenie.
Neal Broverman is the Editorial Director, Print of Pride Media, publishers of The Advocate, Out, Out Traveler, and Plus, spending more than 20 years in journalism. He indulges his interest in transportation and urban planning with regular contributions to Los Angeles magazine, and his work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He lives in the City of Angels with his husband, children, and their chiweenie.