Mat and Anita Staver

All quotes are attributed to Mat Staver, except those attributed specifically to Anita Staver. 

—In the wake of the massacre of LGBTQ people at the Pulse nightclub in Florida said, “As tragic as it is, some of these officers have no doubt gone through trauma as well because they were going through the Pulse nightclub, it was blood everywhere and, you know, they’re having to get tested for AIDS-related conditions because they’re literally walking in pools of blood.” 

—Asserted that gay judges should not be allowed to adjudicate cases involving religious liberty for Christians because they cannot be fair and impartial. 

—Said the county clerk who refused to do her job and issue a marriage license to a gay couple is just like a Jew living in Nazi Germany: “What happened in Nazi Germany, what happened there first, they removed the Jews from government public employment, then they stopped patronizing them in their private businesses, then they continued to stigmatize them, then they were the ‘problems,’ then they killed them.”

—Said LGBTQ activists are like terrorists.

—Claimed, without a shred of proof, that people behind transgender bathroom accommodations in North Carolina are pro-pedophile activists: “They have been identified, some of them that have been advocating this, as pedophiles”; “Some of this is being financed by those who are actively promoting pedophilia.”

—In response to Target’s policy as of April 2016 in which transgender people are welcome “to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity,” Anita Staver tweeted 9since deleted) “I’m taking a Glock .45 to the ladies room. It identifies as my bodyguard. #BoycottTarget @Target.” After backlash against this tweet, she responded, “I can’t remember the last time I was in a public restroom without a gun.” 

—Suggested marriage equality should lead opponents to rise up and fight “another American Revolution.“

—Or a civil war, perhaps: “[The marriage fight] is the thing that revolutions literally are made of. This would be more devastating to our freedom, to our religious freedom, to the rights of pastors and their duty to be able to speak and to Christians around the country, then anything that the revolutionaries during the American Revolution even dreamed of facing. This would be the thing that revolutions are made of. This could split the country right in two. This could cause another civil war. I’m not talking about just people protesting in the streets, this could be that level because what would ultimately happen is a direct collision would immediately happen with pastors, with churches, with Christians, with Christian ministries, with other businesses, it would be an avalanche that would go across the country.” 

—Claimed LGBTQ advocates are doing “the bidding of the devil.”

—Claimed negotiating with what he calls “homofascists” (e.g., advocacy groups including GLAAD) is “almost like negotiating with terrorists.”

—On coexisting with LGBTQ rights: “You cannot coexist, you cannot give up on something, that is literally an attack on God himself.“

—Claimed marriage equality obliterates the idea of God: “Same-sex marriage is ultimately the abolition of gender; it’s ultimately the abolition of any moral behavior with regards to human sexuality. This whole assault on marriage is really an attempt to obliterate not only morality but Judeo-Christian morality, to obliterate marriage and to even obliterate the idea that there even is a God.”

—On the repeal of the discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell”: “We believe they’ve slapped the military in the face and have betrayed the men and women in the service by using the military to push the homosexual agenda. We will ask the House to refuse to fund the repeal, which will take millions of dollars to fund.” 

—Claimed: “Same-sex marriage, same-sex relationships is [sic] destructive to individuals and it’s destructive to our very social fabric.“

—Said: “We are facing the survival of western values, western civilization…. One of the most significant threats to our freedom is in the area of sexual anarchy with the agenda of the homosexual movement, the so-called LGBT movement. It does several things, first of all it undermines family and the very first building block of our society, but secondly, it’s a zero-sum game as well and it’s a direct assault on our religious freedom and freedom of speech.” (0:00—0:36)

—Said the LGBTQ movement constitutes “the abolition of civil rights”: “The transsexuals, some of the other bizarre things we’re starting to see like this, [lesbians and gays] wanted to push off later. Don’t put them in the cameras or the media because the public will have a reaction to it. Now they’re beginning to parade them out, and it’s becoming part of their overall abolition of gender notion that if you abolish—if you ultimately have this accepted by society, that a man can be identified as a woman and a woman can be identified as a man and you out to have civil rights that follow your subjective, inner thoughts. Then they ultimately create sexual anarchy; they create an abolition of morality, and they ultimately achieve their goal—which is to literally to explode marriage, and to literally abolish any moral absolute objective truth. If this is civil rights, this is the abolition of civil rights.”