Skip to main content
The Latest /
LGBTQ Rights

PFAW Urges GOP Candidates To Drop Out of Summit With Pastor Who Defends Death Penalty For Gays

Contact:
Layne Amerikaner or Laura Epstein
People For the American Way
Phone number:

People For the American Way is calling on Republican presidential candidates Sen. Ted Cruz, Gov. Mike Huckabee and Gov. Bobby Jindal to withdraw from a conference in Iowa next month hosted by a far-right pastor who has defended capital punishment for homosexuality and who has blamed forest fires on women who wear pants.

People For the American Way’s Right Wing Watch has documented the long history of extreme anti-gay, anti-women rhetoric from Kevin Swanson, the Colorado activist and pastor who is organizing next month’s “National Religious Liberties Conference” in Des Moines, which event organizers say Cruz, Huckabee and Jindal are scheduled to attend.

“We already knew that the Republican Party opposed LGBT rights and women’s equality, but this is taking things to a new level,” said People For the American Way President Michael Keegan. “We can respectfully disagree on matters of public policy, but someone who supports gay people being put to death should have no place in our public discourse, much less be sharing the stage with a major party’s presidential candidates.”

“If Cruz, Huckabee and Jindal are serious about wanting to hold the nation’s highest office,” Keegan said, “they should back out of this conference and denounce the extremism of its organizer.”

Swanson’s wild extremism includes:

###