Politics

Pence picked an anti-LGBTQ extremist to lead “listening” session with Black leaders

Bishop Harry Jackson Jr
Bishop Harry Jackson Jr Photo: screenshot

Vice President Mike Pence, the former Indiana Governor who spurred national outrage for his vicious attacks on the LGBTQ community, picked an anti-gay extremist to lead a discussion with Black religious and political leaders.

The meeting came a week after President Donald Trump had police brutality protestors gassed and beaten by federal agents outside of the White House so he could walk across a park to have his photo taken outside of a church while holding a Bible.

Related: The 5 most dangerous religious right leaders in Trump’s America

While Trump has continued to antagonize Black leaders and protestors by threatening violence and using racist language, his administration has scrambled to try to make the bumbling commander-in-chief seem presidential. So far, it hasn’t worked.

The Rev. Harry Jackson Jr. a Black minister from the DC area and ardent Trump supporter, is best known for his vociferous attacks on the LGBTQ community. He is a member of Trump’s “Evangelical Advisory Board.” The meeting was held at his Pentecostal church.

“It’s clear that those images shocked the conscience of a nation,” Pence told to the group. “We have no tolerance for violence against an individual in this country or tolerance for police brutality, and no tolerance for rioting in the streets or looting and destruction of property or the claiming the innocent lives, including the lives of law enforcement.”

President Trump, however, has urged violence against protestors, called in the National Guard and other federal law enforcement officers over the wishes of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. The troops antagonized protestors and their violent actions only spurred more demonstrations.

Trump has also regularly encouraged police officers to be more violent during campaign rallies.

Jackson has been an anti-LGBTQ crusader for years, regularly spewing hate speech and making wild accusations about civil rights laws and marriage equality. He has said LGBTQ people are “folks who cannot reproduce who want to recruit your kids” and said that the movement for marriage equality proved that the U.S. was “just like during the times of Hitler.”

fellow Christians to “steal back the rainbow. We can’t let the gays have it.”

In 2018, he said that Black Lives Matter will fail because there are lesbians in its leadership.

“We can’t have social justice, we need biblical justice,” Jackson said. “It matters that Black Lives Matter has, at the head, a few lesbians who are against the patriarchal society.”

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