Notorious homophobe Rick Santorum is Trump’s newest advisor
Santorum joins Trump's Catholic Advisory Board and brings a wealth of anti-LGBT sentiment with him
In his latest effort to prove that he is a “friend” to the LGBT community, Donald Trump has named former Sen. Rick Santorum as an advisor to his campaign.
Santorum has a long and storied history of opposition to LGBT rights. He has previously said that marriage equality would have “profound consequences” for the world, said that he wouldn’t attend the wedding of a gay friend or relative, argued in favor of denying services to gay people, stated that he has a “problem with homosexual acts,” believes being gay is a choice, and compared same-sex marriage to pedophilia and bestiality.
Trump has nominated Santorum to his “Catholic Advisory Group,” announced Thursday, with the intention of representing Trump’s “endorsement of a range of issues and policies important to Catholics and other Christians, and his desire to have access to the wise counsel of such leaders,” according to a campaign statement.
The group includes a number of right-wing activists and politicians, including Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback — who last year said in a statement that the entire state disagreed with same-sex marriage, before signing an executive order that gave religious organisations and individuals license to discriminate against LGBT people.
Trump’s list of advisors also includes people who have openly criticized him in the past, with one even saying he was “manifestly unfit to be president.”
Right Wing Watch did some digging on those in Trump’s list and found that Joseph Cella, founder of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, signed an open letter in March this year attacking Trump, his politics, and the level of discourse he has brought to the campaign.
“Donald Trump is manifestly unfit to be president of the United States,” the letter reads. “His campaign has already driven our politics down to new levels of vulgarity. His appeals to racial and ethnic fears and prejudice are offensive to any genuinely Catholic sensibility. He promised to order U.S. military personnel to torture terrorist suspects and to kill terrorists’ families — actions condemned by the Church and policies that would bring shame upon our country.”
“Mr. Trump’s record and his campaign show us no promise of greatness,” the letter concludes. “They promise only the further degradation of our politics and our culture.”
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