Anti-LGBTQ hate group: God will ‘intervene’ to give Trump ‘miraculous victory’
Liberty Counsel used last week's attempted insurrection to try to raise funds from supporters
An anti-LGBTQ hate group is using last week’s attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol to raise funds and tell its supporters that God will “intervene” in the outcome of the presidential election.
Liberty Counsel provides legal counsel and support to anti-LGBTQ individuals and lawsuits, and challenges pro-LGBTQ legislation — actions that have led it to be designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In an email to supporters last week, the organization’s leader, Mat Staver, sent misinformation about the election alongside a plea for money, Joe.My.God reports.
It was sent just two days after supporters of Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol Building to attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election, actions that were encouraged by the president and resulted in five deaths — including one police officer.
While President-elect Joe Biden branded those who participated in the attack “domestic terrorists,” Liberty Counsel leader Mat Staver opened his cry for money by calling them “concerned marchers.”
He then said that the attack did “not change the facts concerning the 2020 general election. The fraud has not changed, and neither has our mission to shine light on that fraud.”
Election officials and Trump’s own administration have reiterated that the 2020 election was the most secure in recent history.
Staver said that Liberty Counsel, which aids those seeking to overturn LGBTQ rights in courts across the U.S., “condemns the violence,” but then told his supporters that there “is hope!”
He then implied that God might “intervene” in the results and help Donald Trump remain in office through a “miraculous victory.”
“Our research and legal staff have been deeply engaged in stopping the steal of our 2020 elections,” Staver wrote. “As I have written for months, the sheer volume of credible, unmistakable evidence of election fraud that occurred is shocking. But we know God can intervene and turn what looks like a hopeless cause into a miraculous victory!”
Somewhat ominously, given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Staver said that the organization is “preparing for the battles ahead, including defending the freedom to choose whether to be vaccinated or not. That battle is looming.”
Staver concludes by saying it is “clear we will face even more challenges. Won’t you please be a part of the blessing that I know God is preparing for you and America?”
Liberty Counsel was one of a number of anti-LGBTQ organizations that secured taxpayer-funded relief funds intended to help support small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to records, the group, which once claimed that the Q in LGBTQ referred to pedophiles, was approved for a loan worth up to $1 million.
In addition to supporting Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Liberty Counsel has fought to block bans on conversion therapy, including last year in Maryland, as well as efforts to fight discrimination against LGBTQ people.
It also threatened last year to have the Supreme Court relitigate and undo marriage equality, with Staver saying it would “fix the mess the Court created.”
Mat Staver has previously claimed that anti-gay groups are being treated like Jewish people in Nazi Germany, claimed that police officers who responded to the anti-LGBTQ Pulse nightclub shooting had to “get tested for AIDS” because of all of the blood at the scene, and claimed that the Equality Act — which would enshrine protections for LGBTQ people into federal law — would “force” acceptance of pedophilia.
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