Here is Pastor Lawrence Bishop II of Ohio’s Solid Rock Church crudely mocking lesbians, condemning “limp-wristed” church leaders who are “dancing like a fairy,” and insisting that he wants people who “struggle with homosexuality” to be “delivered” and to help them realize that “God can set the homosexual free”:
Here is Bishop’s mom, Pastor Darlene Bishop of the same Solid Rock Church, insisting that hell is the reason we have marriage equality before then agreeing with a supporter who insists God is going to destroy us because of marriage equality:
[Facebook]
Here is the late pastor Larry Bishop, the founder of Solid Rock Church, summing up the church’s stance on homosexuality:
“We are not against (gays), but we are against lifestyles that go against the word of God,” [Bishop] said. “If we don’t believe what he believes, we might as well turn that (church) building into a hay barn.”
“We love homosexuals,” Bishop said. “I had an uncle that was homosexual that died of AIDS. Deeply loved him. We love the homosexuals. But we do not agree with homosexuality because the Bible is against it.”
[ABC News]
Here again is the younger Lawrence Bishop applauding a local high school student for preaching anti-LGBTQ messages to her classmates:
Eventually, he brought Gabby onto the stage. He said Jesus was the only answer to sexual perversion.
“I want to show you what brave looks like,” he said standing next to Gabby. “She was willing to stand up and say the word of God was right, and I don’t care who it offends.”
Here is Bishop, in reference to the same high school student, insisting that “gay is not okay” as he longs for the days when kids were sent home for wearing LGBTQ-supportive tees:
And now here is why it matters:
That’s right: the same team that sells pride merchandise on its site, is supposedly working to help LGBTQ people across the globe, and that gives lip service to being a friend to LGBTQ people is choosing to rally at a church that deeply opposes LGBTQ people and all that we stand for. Solid Rock Church has made no bones about its resistance to even basic acceptance of LGBTQ people, and has even managed to carve out a national profile due to this stance. But for Team Trump, this is just another opportunity to court ant-LGBTQ people through yet another deeply homophobic and transphobic partnership.
For us, it’s just more proof confirming what we already know: that the Trump administration is the most anti-LGBTQ administration in modern American history.