Metro Weekly

Linda Harvey backing Cruz for president

Conservative pundit and radio host among throng of social conservatives backing Texas senator's bid

Credit: Mission America
Credit: Mission America

In the race for the Republican nomination for the presidency, it appears Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is sweeping the board when it comes to the endorsements of social conservatives. And one of those names on the ever-growing list being compiled by the Cruz campaign is conservative pundit and radio host Linda Harvey.

Harvey recently received a great deal of attention after she wrote a column lamenting that too many corporations had adopted pro-LGBT policies.

On Monday, Harvey was one of several Ohio-based religious conservatives who announced her support for Cruz via a press release, Right Wing Watch reports. Also among the many endorsers were Phil Burress of Citizens for Community Values, an Ohio affiliate of the Family Research Council, and Molly Smith of Cleveland Right to Life. The press release obtained by Right Wing Watch directs supporters of the organizations to the website of Keep The Promise, a pro-Cruz Super PAC headed by social conservative activist David Barton.

Harvey has previously penned various columns condemning the LGBT movement, alleging that it causes harm to children and families and promotes unhealthy lifestyle choices. In a June op-ed on anti-LGBT activist Matt Barber’s BarbWire, Harvey wrote that the United States needs an “Emancipation Proclamation… to free America from the tyranny of sodomy.”

In an October column for BarbWire, Harvey opined on what the priorities of the next president should be, at least with respect to LGBT rights and same-sex marriage. On Harvey’s wish list?

  • Arefusal to grant any recognition of June as “Gay Pride” month, including by federal agencies or embassies
  • A reversal of the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights’ opinions finding that discrimination against LGBT students constitutes sex discrimination under Title IX
  • Appointments of a U.S. Attorney General and Supreme Court justices with a narrow view of constitutional protections that does not include LGBT people
  • Eliminating programs that “enable and perpetuate homosexual behavior,” including trials related to PrEP and HIV drugs.

Harvey also wishes to end any grants that promote safe sex through the distribution of condoms, revoke any executive orders that recognize “special rights” for LGBT people, such as nondiscrimination protections, and bring back the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military.

“Any president who implements this decisive, family-friendly, freedom-affirming policy agenda would need a backbone of steel and a clear, unfazed vision,” Harvey wrote in that October column. “But that president would go down in history with Lincoln as a great statesman, liberator and defender of faith. Is there such a candidate in America? Will we have the wisdom to elect him or her? My prayer is that there is and we will, before the gates of Sodom close behind us and our children. If that happens, America will reap the whirlwind.”

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