Washington, DC, August 9, 2016—Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) will be speaking this week at a campaign training hosted by the Liberty Council, an extremist hate group monitored by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its anti-LGBTQ discrimination efforts. The two-day event is set to take place at the Hyatt Regency Orlando (9801 International Dr., Orlando, FL 32819) this Thursday, August 11, less than two months after 49 people, mostly LGBTQ Latinos, were killed during a shooting at the Orlando Pulse nightclub.

“Holding this event is an insult to the victims and families of those innocent people who were murdered barely two months ago. Decent people everywhere will be appalled. Stirring up homophobia and islamophobia is wrong at the best of times but to do so when the entire Orlando community is still grieving and recovering from the Pulse tragedy, is beyond distasteful. Donald Trump may have mentioned the LGBTQ community in his acceptance speech which some people interpreted as a positive signal to our community — despite the vehemently anti-LGBTQ views of his running mate Mike Pence and the Republican Party platform. But now Donald Trump and Marco Rubio plan to breathe the oxygen of publicity into an openly anti-LGBTQ event, joining some of the most notorious anti-LGBTQ people out there. Haven’t the people of Orlando had enough?” said Russell Roybal, Deputy Executive Director, National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund.

Among the speakers expected at the event include: Mat Staver, who has represented Kim Davis and Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore and has denounced memorial gatherings for the victims of the Orlando massacre as “homosexual love fests;” David Barton, an anti-LGBTQ extremist who thinks HIV/AIDS is a “divine penalty;” Maine pastor Ken Graves who claims that LGBTQ people can’t raise happy families because they are “depressed;” and David Lane who believes that basic rights for LGBTQ people will lead to “utter destruction” and “car bombs in Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Des Moines.”

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CONTACT:
Jorge Amaro
Media and Public Relations Director
213-842-7564
jamaro@thetaskforce.org