ABOVE: President Donald J. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence, Cabinet members and senior legislators, prior to signing the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act April 24, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen)
The Trump administration has allocated millions of dollars in loans to a handful of anti-LGBTQ organizations, as revealed by a list recently published by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is a series of loans provided by the U.S Small Business Administration to help businesses maintain their workforce during the coronavirus pandemic by providing “a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll.”
Two LGBTQ+ organizations have received funding under the program. The National LGBTQ Task Force received a loan between $350,000 and $1 million and the LGBTQ Victory Fund received one between $150,000 and $350,000. However, the list published by the U.S. Department of the Treasury also shows that a number of organizations with a history of anti-LGBTQ advocacy have also received considerable funding.
The American Family Association received a loan of up to $2 million. The organization is a Christian fundamentalist nonprofit dedicated to “combating the homosexual agenda” and has been designated as an official hate group by the civil rights advocacy group the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“Homosexuality is not only harmful to homosexuals themselves, but also to children and to society,” Stephen Bennett, a writer for the association wrote in 2004.
Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based litigation nonprofit devoted to the “advancement of religious freedom,” received a loan of up to $1 million. The organization has also been designated as an official hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“Homosexual conduct can result in significant damage to those involved who engage in such conduct,” the nonprofit wrote on their official website in 2015. “There is no evidence that a person is born homosexual. And there is evidence that people can change. Our culture is being pressured with demands that our homes welcome, our daycares embrace, our schools indoctrinate, our businesses promote and our laws reward this harmful sexual behavior.”
Pacific Justice Institute, another SPLC-designated hate group, is a legal defense organization that specializes “in the defense of religious freedom, parental rights and other civil liberties.” The institute received a loan of up to $350,000.
“Parents know that the homosexual lifestyle gives for boys an average lifespan of the age of 40. It’s worse than being a chain cigarette smoker,” founder Brad Dacus commented in 2012 in response to a California bill that proposed to limit reparative therapy.
The Texas church First Baptist Dallas, led by televangelist Robert Jeffress, received a loan between $2 million to $5 million under the PPP.
According to the online news magazine LGBTQ Nation, Jeffress views same-sex wedding cakes as “a sign of the Antichrist” and believes that an anti-Christian holocaust would occur if Christian bakers were forced to bake same-sex wedding cakes.
Joyce Meyer Ministries received a loan between $5 million to $10 million. According to PinkNews, a UK-based online publication geared toward the LGBTQ community, the Christian author once remarked that “people ‘chose’ to be gay because they had been ‘hurt by somebody from the opposite sex, and they don’t know how to function right in those relationships.’”
The PPP reopened on July 6. The U.S. Small Business Administration will continue accepting loan applications from businesses until Aug. 8.
