Trump Warns Evangelicals of "Violence" if GOP Loses in Midterms, and Lies to Them

Trump and Christian extremist leaders at the White House.

Donald Trump was back in Adolph Hitler mode as he addressed a who's who of evangelical Christian extremists and parasitic "professional Christians" such as Franklin Graham and white supremacist loving Tony Perkins.  Specifically, Trump seemed to be messaging to his base that violence would be appropriate against liberals and Democrats if Republican candidates lose significantly in the 2018 midterm elections. In one of his typical lies, Trump attributed to liberals and Democrats that has been consistently engaged in by the far right of the GOP Base.  The second big lie was that even as Trump was de facto encouraging violence, he lied to the Christofascists at the gather when he claimed to have changed laws that restrict churches from engaging in politically partisan election activities. Trump neither rescinded the so-called Johnson Amendment nor does he have the power to do so.  His knuckle dragging, spittle flecked and hate-filled audience nonetheless ate up the lie.  CNN looks at Trump's warnings of violence.  Here are excerpts:

President Donald Trump, facing scrutiny for hush money payments to a porn star and a former Playboy model, pleaded with evangelical leaders for political help during closed-door remarks on Monday, warning of dire consequences to their congregations should Republicans lose in November's midterm elections.

"This November 6 election is very much a referendum on not only me, it's a referendum on your religion, it's a referendum on free speech and the First Amendment. It's a referendum on so much," Trump told the assemblage of pastors and other Christian leaders gathered in the State Dining Room, according to a recording from people in the room. "It's not a question of like or dislike, it's a question that they will overturn everything that we've done and they will do it quickly and violently. And violently. There is violence. . . . "You have tremendous power. You were saying, in this room, you have people who preach to almost 200 million people. Depending on which Sunday we're talking about."
 But inviting the leaders to the White House only days after [Trump] the President was newly implicated by his longtime personal lawyer's guilty plea underscored the degree to which Trump is trying to keep his supporters on his side.
 "You have to hopefully get out and get people to support us," Trump said. "If you don't, that will be the beginning of ending everything that you've gotten." The remarks from an attendee's recording offered a more dire view of the upcoming vote than Trump has projected in public. He often trumpets an upcoming "red wave" of Republican victories, downplaying suggestions that Democrats are poised to exploit his divisiveness and retake the House or Senate.
 Trump didn't mention a "red wave" on Monday, instead acknowledging that midterms often present new presidents with a turnout challenge. . . . there's a real question as to whether people are going to vote if I'm not on the ballot. And I'm not on the ballot."  That's a problem Trump said the evangelical leaders could help solve by galvanizing their congregations and followers to vote.

The New York Times described the event as Trump's "attempt to use the specter of violence at the hands of his political opponents and to fan the flames of cultural divisions in the country."  As noted, at this gathering of the leaders of the American Taliban, Trump boasted about changes in the law that he has not made and lacks the power to make.  NBC News looks at Trump's deliberate lies to the assembled Christofascists.  Here are highlights:

In a closed-door meeting with evangelical leaders Monday night, President Donald Trump repeated his debunked claim that he had gotten "rid of" a law forbidding churches and charitable organizations from endorsing political candidates, according to recorded excerpts reviewed by NBC News.

In fact, the law remains on the books, after efforts to kill it in Congress last year failed.

But Trump cited this alleged accomplishment as one in a series of gains he has made for his conservative Christian supporters, as he warned, "You're one election away from losing everything that you've got," and said their opponents were "violent people" who would overturn these gains "violently."

Trump addressed the law and the upcoming midterms in private remarks Monday during a dinner with evangelical supporters at the White House after the press had left.

The law that Trump says he got rid of is the so-called Johnson Amendment, a provision inserted into law in 1954 by then-senator and future President Lyndon Johnson of Texas, who was miffed that a conservative nonprofit group was helping his opponent.

The law says churches and charities "are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office."

"Now one of the things I'm most proud of is getting rid of the Johnson Amendment," the president said. "That was a disaster for you."

The president doesn't have the power to repeal a law — only Congress can do that. The Supreme Court can also rule a law unconstitutional, but that has not happened in this case.

In May 2017, Trump signed an executive order that purported to ease enforcement of the Johnson Amendment. But experts — and the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes repeal of the provision — say the Trump order was basically toothless.
In other words, religious organizations can express their religious views, as they always could — but still cannot formally participate in political campaigns.

GOP Tax Bill: A Plan to Turn Churches into Dark-Money Sources

Back in June, 216, Donald Trump met with so-called evangelical Christian "leaders" - many head up hate groups that parade as "family values" organizations - and promised them a wish list that included not only an offensive against LGBT rights (something Trump and Jeff Sessions have already been delivering on) but a promise to allow churches, especially, right wing churches, to engage in political endorsements and other activities banned under the so-called Johnson Amendment that prohibits tax-exempt "charities" - a term I personally think should not apply to churches - from political activities.  Now, in the Republican tax bill - which has much to dislike and oppose - seeks to deliver on this promise to Christofascists.   If enacted, this would give a double gift to right wing plutocrats as well as hate merchants who wrap themselves in religion: donors can take a charitable deduction for the "gift" to the church and then the church can engage in political activities against candidates who oppose the Christofascists' divisive, often racist, anti-immigrant, homophobic agenda.  A piece in Salon looks at this insidious effort.  Here are highlights:

There's no doubt that the main purpose of the Republican tax bill, in both its House and Senate forms, is to slash taxes for corporations and the rich while making the rest of the country pay for it. But Republicans are also stuffing a wish list of right-wing goals into the bill. One provision of the House legislation that has gotten relatively little media attention has the potential to drastically remake our campaign finance system, and tilt the already unfair playing field even further toward the Republicans.

Ever since 1954, a legislative add-on known as the Johnson Amendment has prevented charities, social welfare organizations and, perhaps most importantly, churches from endorsing candidates. Such institutions may lose their tax-exempt status if they engage in electioneering. The House bill would functionally dismantle the Johnson Amendment, thereby opening the door to pastors endorsing candidates from the pulpits and for charities large and small -- even the Red Cross or Salvation Army -- to openly support political candidates or causes in the course of their official charitable work.

“The tax bill threatens the integrity of our elections and all of our tax-exempt organizations," Maggie Garrett, the legislative director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in an emailed statement.

This provision, Adam Bozzi of End Citizens United explained to Salon, would create "a gaping loophole in our campaign finance system." Bozzi explained it could "allow a big political donor who wants to make a contribution through the back door to give to a church, which could then endorse a candidate and engage in electioneering."

To make it even worse, the tax-exempt status of churches and charities means that any millionaire or billionaire who funneled political spending through such a group could then turn around and claim that donation as a tax writeoff. Money given to a pastor in order to buy his endorsement wouldn't look any different on paper than money given to a church for its charitable work or other legitimate purposes. Republicans are creating a loophole that will allow rich people to shelter political donations from taxes while influencing election campaigns in total secrecy.

"Faith leaders are called to speak truth to power, and we cannot do so if we are merely cogs in partisan political machines," explains a letter signed by more than 4,000 religious leaders in support of the Johnson Amendment. "Current law respects this independence and strikes the right balance: houses of worship that enjoy favored tax-exempt status may engage in advocacy to address moral and political issues, but they cannot tell people who to vote for or against."

More than 5,500 nonprofit groups have signed a similar letter supporting the Johnson Amendment, noting that current law "protects the integrity and independence of charitable nonprofits and foundations" and "screens out doubts and suspicions regarding ulterior partisan motives of charitable organizations."

What makes this whole debate especially strange is that in the era before Donald Trump's presidential campaign, there really wasn't much controversy over the Johnson Amendment. Some right-wing pastors grumbled about it, but it wasn't a major agenda item for the Christian right or anyone else. But as a candidate, Trump began talking up the idea of repealing the Johnson Amendment as an easy way to pander to the religious right. Now this idea — which was once considered the fringe of the fringe — has made its way into the House tax bill.

Of course, it's easy to understand why Republicans were quick to grab this particular Trumpian idea and inject it into the mainstream GOP agenda. Creating this loophole in our campaign finance system would almost certainly benefit Republicans exponentially more than Democrats. While Democrats certainly have their billionaires who would like to spend a lot of money on elections, Republicans have far more dark-money donors who might be willing to buy up churches and charities and turn them into political lobbies and money funnels.

This effect would most be most likely to have an impact on local and state elections, where it would be ridiculously easy for anonymous but wealthy "benefactors" to make huge donations to churches and charities in exchange for endorsements for their preferred candidates. Already, the loosening of campaign finance laws has opened the door to massive amounts of dark money that has an outsized impact on these kinds of elections. Ending the Johnson Amendment would drastically increase the flow of dark money, turning the idea of electoral fairness into more of a joke than it is already.

If this provision becomes law, expect "family values" hate groups to rake in money from right wing donors and then push for candidates who would intertwine their toxic religious beliefs in the civil law.  Local elections would be particularly at risk.  I can fully imagine Pat Robertson, extremists at Liberty University and The Family Foundation targeting school board and other local elections to fill positions with like minded extremists.

Call your U.S. Senators and member of the House of Representatives and demand that they vote "No" on the GOP tax bills.  

Trump's Transgender Ban Is Becoming Official Policy

Time and time again the only campaign promises Donald Trump is keeping are those made to Christofascists leaders in June, 2016, at a meeting at Trump Tower.  For background, on June 21, 2016, Donald Trump met with a who's who of far right Christian groups - a number of which are certified hate groups - in New York City.  The purpose?  To win the support of these Christian extremists who could then rally their followers to vote for the Trump/Pence ticket through their insidious, under the radar networks.  Among the rallying points promised to these extremists were the appointment of anti-abortion and anti-gay justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, repealing the six decade old Johnson Amendment so that churches could engage in political campaigns, anti-transgender bathroom bills, and license to discriminate laws disguised as efforts to protect the "religious freedom" of Christian extremists.  Trump delivered on the first promise when he placed Neil Gorsuch on the Court, his Justice Department and Department of Education are aggressively rolling back LGBT protections, and now Trump has targeted transgender members of the U.S. military.  As a piece in the Los Angeles Blade written by fellow LGBT blogger, Karen Ocamb, reports, Trump's anti-transgender tweets are becoming official policy. The issue will be whether or not the military leadership complies with Trump's openly discriminatory directives.  Here are article excerpts:

President Donald Trump may be on a 17- day vacation but his White House has been scrambling to hand him a “win” by the time he returns. Trump’s tweets last week announcing a ban on transgender individuals serving openly in the U.S. military was turned into a “guidance” policy for implementation that passed muster with the White House Counsel’s office Friday night. Approved by Trump, the new policy is expected to be now delivered into the hands of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who has been quiet on the issue with approximately 15,000 trans servicemembers under his command.

After his review, Mattis is expected to order a deliberate implementation by the Pentagon, which could take a period of time.

Though the policy—called “A Guidance Policy for Open Transgender Service Phase Out”—has not yet been made public, sources familiar with the planning said it would encourage early retirement, usher out any enlisted personnel after their contract is up, and would fire trans officers up for promotion. Basically, said a source, “the administration want to get rid of transgender servicemembers as fast as they can.”

No one yet knows what will happen to the servicemembers currently fighting in combat. The new policy does allow trans servicemembers to continue serving but apparently does not offer any protection from harassment or other efforts to get them to quit.

Trump said in his tweets that the decision to ban trans military service was made after consultation with his generals and to safeguard the readiness of the armed forces. That flies in the face of a Rand study  commissioned in 2016 by then-Sec. of Defense Ash Carter that said there were “few obstacles” to lifting the existing ban against trans service.

Trump focused his attention on the cost of medical care for trans servicemembers who want to transition on the job. But, the New York Times reported: “Paying for the procedures would cost the Pentagon between $2.9 million to $4.2 million a year, the report said. By comparison, the Pentagon each year spends $6 billion of its $610 billion budget on medical costs for active-duty service members.”
 Last Tuesday, 56 retired generals and admirals came out against Trump’s proposed ban. “This proposed ban, if implemented, would cause significant disruptions, deprive the military of mission-critical talent, and compromise the integrity of transgender troops who would be forced to live a lie, as well as non-transgender peers who would be forced to choose between reporting their comrades or disobeying policy,” the retired officers said in a statement, The Hill reported. Two sources says they have confirmation from their sources at the White House and Pentagon that the “phase out” policy is on its way to the Secretary of Defense.
 Matthew F. Thorn, Executive Director of OutServe-SLDN, released the following statement:

“The President’s order to remove transgender service members from the United States armed forces is nothing less than a purge. He is implementing this purge based on bigotry, motivated by agents of an ideology that has no concern for the national defense, and in blatant disregard of the experience of career officers who spent more than a year developing and implementing the current policy. . . . OutServe-SLDN with our partner Lambda Legal will be immediately filing a lawsuit in federal court to challenge this action.”

As Trump's approval numbers continue to fall it seems clear that he will do anything to appease the Christofascists - along with white supremacists - who put him in office.  My August VEER Magazine piece (which is on the streets around the 15th of the month) covers the intensifying attacks on LGBT Americans.

Will the Politicization of Churches Backfire?

Trump and Christofascists/hate merchants James Dobson and Tony Perkins

As noted, Donald Trump's "religious liberty" executive order has left the anti-gay forces among the Christofascist hugely disappointed.  The longed for exemption of Christofascists from non-discrimination laws and ordinances did not materialize.  What the hate merchants did receive was purported cover for right wing churches to openly engage in political activities - not that many weren't already doing so on a de facto basis anyways.  Here in Virginia, The Family Foundation, perhaps the leading hate group in Virginia, has for years operated a network with conservative churches and pastors and pushed these churches to vigorously work for TFF's regressive and theocratic agenda.   Thus, the executive order may not result in any change in the reality on the ground that much.   More importantly, it may accelerate the exodus from Christianity and religion in general that is sweeping the country.  I have long thought that despite a uptick in aggressiveness and stridency, long term the Christofascists may be one of the most powerful elements in the death of Christianity.  A piece in Salon looks at this possibility.  Here are highlights:

Thursday, on the National Day of Prayer, Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty.” . . . . The final draft of the order, however, was a drastic rewriting. All the LGBT-specific attacks were taken out and abortion was not mentioned, though the new order does direct federal officials to consider changing health care regulations in order to stop insurance coverage of contraception for huge swaths of women. Instead, in a somewhat surprising move, the executive order largely focuses on undermining a law meant to discourage religious authorities from using their powers to influence elections.

This move is obviously meant as a giveaway to leaders of the religious right, who did so much to help elect Trump, and also as a way for Republicans to consolidate power by allowing conservative Christian pastors even more leeway to pressure their congregants to vote Republican. But this power grab could well backfire on the Christian right. Instead of drumming up more votes for Republicans, breaking down barriers between church and state may end up driving even more people out of the churches entirely.

Trump’s executive order doesn’t change the law — that would take an act of Congress. But it officially discourages the IRS from auditing or fining religious organizations and churches that may be in violation of it. . . . . it’s a solution looking for a problem. There’s no evidence that churches are being treated especially harshly by the IRS.

Still, the release of this executive order and all the publicity around it could encourage ministers, especially those of the fundamentalist variety, to get even bolder when it comes to campaigning from the pulpit. That’s where there’s a good chance this whole effort could backfire. There’s a fair amount of evidence to suggest that churches that become more political and conservative aren’t recruiting more people to the right-wing cause, and in fact may be driving people away.

One of the biggest social trends of the past decade is the rapid growth of the “nones” — people with no affiliation to organized religion — which is particularly pronounced with younger Americans. Both Pew Research and the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) have found that up to a quarter of Americans don’t identity with any religious tradition at all, up from 6 percent in 1991. Four out of 10 Americans under the age of 30 are unchurched.

But where it gets really interesting is when one starts looking at the reasons why. Most nonreligious people — 78 percent, according to Pew Research — were raised in a religion and abandoned it in adulthood. While most simply say they no longer believe, there is some evidence that distaste for the religious right has had a significant impact.
According to PRRI, nearly 30 percent of those who have left a church cite their disapproval of religious homophobia as a reason. Sixteen percent say their churches became too political and 19 percent cite the clergy sex abuse scandal.

Sixty-six percent of nonbelievers in the PRRI survey agreed with the statement that “religion causes more problems in society than it solves.”

Encouraging ministers and priests to become more belligerent and more repressive in their politics, in the face of these rapid changes in religious affiliation and religious attitudes, is not likely to gain converts to the conservative cause. It’s probably just going to make more people who were already feeling uneasy with the conservative bent of much of Christianity to choose to leave their churches, and quite possibly to abandon religion altogether.

[P]olling data shows that most Americans think it’s a good idea to keep churches away from direct political campaigning. Pew Research polling shows that 66 percent of American respondents support the Johnson amendment.

Perhaps, then, atheists should be the ones celebrating this executive order. Legally, Trump’s latest order is largely toothless, but culturally, it’s only likely to accentuate the aspects of religion Americans like the least, namely the controlling and reactionary aspects of it. That, in turn, will encourage more Americans to use their Sunday mornings for sleeping and shopping, rather than enduring political lectures from conservative religious pastors.

Let's hope that by giving them a portion of what they want, Trump will have unwittingly accelerated their long term demise. 

Trump Vows to ‘Destroy’ Ban on Political Endorsements by Churches

If there were any big winners in the 2016 presidential election it was the Christofascists who appear well on their way toward achieving a Christian dominionist America.  Reportedly, Christian extremist Jerry Falwell Jr., a man who is anti-science and who supports the teaching of creationism will head an education reform task force under Donald Trump and is keen to cut university regulations, including rules on dealing with campus sexual assault.  With Trump's potential "religious freedom" executive order and/or the passage of the "First Amendment Defense Act," Christofascists will be above a myriad of non-discrimination laws and state and local nondiscrimination protections will be voided.   Now, Trump said his administration would “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 law that prohibits churches from endorsing or opposing political candidates at the risk of losing their tax-exempt status. As noted in a column in the Washington Post, Christian Sharia law is coming to America.  The New York Times looks at Trump's latest frightening promise to Christofascists.  Here are highlights:

President Trump vowed on Thursday to overturn a law restricting political speech by tax-exempt churches, a potentially huge victory for the religious right and a gesture to evangelicals, a voting bloc he attracted to his campaign by promising to free up their pulpits.

Mr. Trump said his administration would “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 law that prohibits churches from endorsing or opposing political candidates at the risk of losing their tax-exempt status.

“Freedom of religion is a sacred right, but it is also a right under threat all around us,” Mr. Trump told religious leaders at the National Prayer Breakfast. “That is why I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution.”

Repealing the law would require approval by Congress, which could prove challenging given that Democrats, and even some Republicans, would resist what many view as an erosion of the separation between church and state.

Eliminating the measure has been a goal of many social conservatives, who argue that it unfairly restricts clergy members from expressing themselves by endorsing, or speaking out against, political candidates.

Many see government persecution in limits on their official religious activities at work, and complain that the Internal Revenue Service — an agency that the right views with a special ire — singles out churches dominated by Christian conservatives.

It was one of several checklist items that religious conservative leaders told Mr. Trump were important to them. And they reacted to his announcement with delight.

Few Americans had even heard of the Johnson Amendment when Mr. Trump turned it into a rallying cry during the campaign. He told a crowd at the Iowa fairgrounds last August, “It denies your pastors their right to free speech, and has had a huge negative impact on religion.”

No one lobbied Mr. Trump to make the amendment an issue, said Johnnie Moore, a Christian publicist who serves on the president’s evangelical advisory board. He said Mr. Trump himself fixed on it in his first campaign meeting with the board members last June at Trump Tower.

Mr. Trump asked them why they did not have the courage to speak out more during elections. When the pastors informed him that they could lose their tax-exempt status, Mr. Trump declared the law unfair.

In meetings since then between Mr. Trump and pastors, whether in public or private, Mr. Moore said, Mr. Trump consistently says, “Everybody in this country has freedom of speech, except for you.” 

Churches and clergy members are free to speak out on political and social issues — and many do — but the Johnson Amendment was intended to inhibit them from endorsing or opposing political candidates.

Separately, the Free Speech Fairness Act was introduced in the House and the Senate on Wednesday. The bill would modify the Johnson Amendment by allowing churches and other charities to engage in political expression.

However, most Americans, and even most clergy members, say they do not want churches and houses of worship to engage in partisan politics. Nearly 80 percent of Americans said it was inappropriate for pastors to endorse a candidate in church, and 75 percent said churches should not make endorsements, according to a survey released in September by LifeWay Research, an evangelical polling group based in Nashville.

As with everything else with Trump, what a majority of Americans want and/or support means nothing.  Rather it is all about empowering the ugly minority that put him in office due to a fluke in the Electoral College that made Hillary Clinton's winning of the popular vote meaningless. 

Trump Promises to Force Taxpayers to Underwrite Political Activities of Churches

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution bars the establishment of and religious denomination, the original intent being that no citizen should be forced to provide financial support to a church to which they did not belong or believe in.  Over the intervening years, however, American taxpayers have been forced to indirectly support churches through the tax-exempt status afforded under Section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code under the ruse that churches are charitable institutions that do charitable works benefiting the general public.  One of the trade offs for such forced indirect taxpayer support has been that churches cannot engage in political activity or endorse candidates.  The sad reality is that studies have shown that most churches spend tiny fractions of their revenues on true charitable works.  Likewise, despite the ban on political activity, many churches and clergy engage in blatant partisanship activities and/or endorse candidates. As bad as all this is, Donald Trump has promised those gathered at the hate fest known as the "Value Voters Summit" that he would remove all restrictions on political activities by religious organizations.  Thus, taxpayers would be further forced to subsidize churches actively working against their interests and, in the case of LGBT citizens, their very civil rights.  Here are highlights from the Wall Street Journal on Trump's promises to the Christofascists:  

Donald Trump on Friday pledged to a raucous room of social conservatives that, if elected, the nation’s Christian heritage “will be cherished, protected, defended like you have never seen before.”

Appearing on Friday afternoon at the Values Voters Summit, Mr. Trump offered a menu of policy proposals aimed at winning over social conservatives who would otherwise seem an ill fit in the thrice-married New York gambling magnate’s coalition.

The Republican presidential nominee vowed to repeal a 62-year-old measure in the tax code known as the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits tax-exempt entities including Churches from making political endorsements. He said he would direct federal education aid to religious schools, condemned the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, praised the “unbreakable faith and spirit” of the black church, and said politicians had “abandoned” Christians.
 “The Johnson Amendment has blocked our pastors and ministers and others from speaking their minds from their own pulpits,” he said. “If they want to talk about Christianity, if they want to preach, if they want to talk about politics, they’re unable to do so… If they want to, they take a tremendous risk: that they lose their tax-exempt status. If I become president, we’re going to knock out the Johnson amendment.”

The Family Research Council, the event’s organizer, said Mr. Trump’s speech and his running mate Mike Pence’s appearance on Saturday mark the first time a GOP presidential ticket has addressed the conference in its 11-year history.

Mr. Trump is the first GOP nominee to make the Johnson Amendment a major campaign issue. Many pastors already flout the tax law, all-but-endorsing both Republican and Democratic candidates from their pulpits by inviting them to their churches and singing their praises. They do so largely with impunity.

Mr. Trump used much of the rest of his speech to connect campaign promises to Christian priorities. Referencing a policy proposal to strengthen “school choice” that he unveiled the day before, Mr. Trump said he wanted to empower religious families to educate their children in their faith. He sought to blame Mrs. Clinton for the flourishing of ISIS, a group which, he pointed out, has massacred Christians in the region.

Many of the conference’s attendees expressed enthusiasm at Mr. Trump’s appearance, conveying little of the hesitation to embrace him seen during the Republican primary campaign, when many evangelical voters chose Ben Carson and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

“I’m a gun-toting, Bible-thumping Christian. I know he’s not,” said Roy Wagers, an accountant from Novi, Mich., who supported Mr. Carson in the primary. “But I think he hasn’t been bought out like the rest of Washington.”

What Trump proposes is the direct opposite of what is needed.  The tax-exempt status of churches needs to be fully revoked.  To the extent a church or religious organization actually engages in true charitable work of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and providing shelter to the homeless and similar activities, those specific operations should be tax-exempt.  Other than that, church property and revenues need to be taxed just like every other business.  Yes, without forced public support via tax-exempt status, many churches would be forced to shut down or consolidate with other churches - just like any other business that peddles a product for which there is lack of a public demand.  For those who want the "fellowship" they find at church, join a club or fraternal organization.  It would likely cost them less and give them the same social opportunities.  I for one am sick and tired of being forced to indirectly support parasitical institutions .

As for the sponsor of the confab of haters Trump addressed, the main organizer is Family Research Council, a certified hate group with strong white supremacists overtones and ties.  That Trump and Pence spoke there shows the lengths to which they will prostitute themselves to gain power.  But then again, during his rise to power, Hitler co-opted many of Germany's churches, so perhaps we should not be surprised.

Trump To Headline Anti-LGBT Hate Group Event

Remember how self-loathing "gays for Trump" have ridiculously claimed that Trump would be the better president when it comes to protecting gays?  That same Donald Trump is now going to be headlining a veritable hate fest of anti-gay Christofascists in Orlando just two months after the Pulse massacre.  Some of the attendees who will be at this gathering of religious extremists even went so far as to complain that the Pulse shooter didn't kill even more LGBT individuals. I'm sorry, but in my view, if you are a gay Republican you need to either pull your head out of your ass and/or seek a mental health intervention to over come your apparent internalized homophobia.  People for the American Way (which advocates for separation of church and state) had these remarks:

According to news reports today, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump will be attending an American Renewal Project event along with Sen. Marco Rubio later this week in Orlando, scheduled to take place exactly two months after the horrific Pulse nightclub shooting. The event includes some of the most extreme anti-gay activists in the country and is organized by an activist who has said that God would punish the country with “car bombs in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Des Moines” for the LGBT-inclusive program at President Obama’s inauguration.

People For the American Way president Michael Keegan released the following statement:

“That the GOP standard bearer is choosing to rub shoulders with some of the most extreme anti-gay voices in the country speaks volumes about the Republican party today. These are people who revile gay people, calling them ‘demonic,’ and who claim that LGBT rights will lead to the ‘utter destruction’ of our country. But the GOP presidential candidate seemingly has no qualms about casting his lot with these dangerous anti-gay voices.”

 Right Wing Watch also looks at the foul gathering that Trump will be headlining.  Here are excerpts:

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is scheduled to attend a radical anti-LGBT event in being held in Orlando this week exactly two months after the Pulse nightclub shooting, according to news reports from Jenna Browder of the Christian Broadcasting Network and Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg News.

As we reported last week, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and a host of anti-LGBT extremists are slated to address the “Rediscovering God in America” event, which is sponsored by the American Renewal Project.

Self-described “political operative” David Lane founded the American Renewal Project as a way to mobilize conservative Christian voters and inspire right-wing pastors to run for elected office. He told Jacobs that he intends to quiz Trump on how he plans to fight “homosexual totalitarianism” and the gay rights “militants.”

Lane, a vocal opponent of LGBT equality, has said that “homosexuals praying at the Inauguration” in 2012 would cause “car bombs in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Des Moines, Iowa” as a sign of God’s judgment and that the “pagan onslaught” of the LGBT rights movement will lead to the destruction of America. 

Local lunatic and professional Christian parasite Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network lauded Trump for attending the hate fest.  Here are excerpts:

We have an exclusive to share with you: GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump will be speaking to hundreds of pastors this Thursday in Orlando, Florida. This is a private event sponsored by the American Renewal Project.

Trump will speak to them about his push to repeal the Johnson Amendment. The law, which has been in place for decades, has made it more difficult for pastors to speak out on political issues and candidates from the pulpit. We should also note that former presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio will also speak to pastors at the two-day event.

Events like this one will be crucial to Trump if he wants to beat Hillary Clinton. The reality is that evangelical pastors are a major key ingredient to mobilizing the masses. They hold great power over a captive audience every week in the pews. Trump needs them engaged. If they are, the flocks will typically follow.

The result? A bottom up approach that will affect turnout exponentially. The top down approach of receiving key endorsements won't do squat unless the evangelicals sitting in the pews are motivated.

Trump shouldn't assume that the anti-Hillary sentiment will be all he needs. No. He needs to do some work and by showing up in Orlando he's well on his way to striking evangelical gold.

Note how Trump wants to grant tax-exempt churches the right to engage in political activities.  Stated another way, Trump wants to force all taxpayers to indirectly subsidize the political activities of churches that seek to take away their civil rights.