OK, we’ll bite: Rubio is hosting an anti-LGBT event in Orlando just two months after the Pulse massacre.

We really didn’t want to write about this monstrosity, in that it comes doused in such fetid offensiveness as the Liberty Counsel and it’s “one-t” Mat Staver, seasoned with the stench of a Republican senator/failed presidential candidate/U.S. Senate candidate reborn … oh, and also it comes on a solemn day in Orlando: the two-month commemoration of the 49 killed at Pulse Orlando on June 12.

The Florida Renewal Project will be here with a litany of terrible people, the Miami New Times reports. Oh, dear. (Lest we forget that Republicans now love gays.)

Attending the event:

• David Barton, a discredited evangelical historian whose book about Thomas Jefferson, The Jefferson Lies, was pulled from shelves for containing too many factual inaccuracies. (NPR also attacked him for somehow misquoting the Bible. Repeatedly.) Back to the homophobia: He’s also said God is rightfully blocking a cure for HIV and AIDS to punish LGBT people.
• Bill Federer, a conservative author who claims homosexuals are to blame for Islamic terrorism.
• Fred L. Lowery, a conservative pastor and author who once wrote a book promoting religious “covenant marriage,” a stricter form of marriage in which couples sign documents restricting the reasons they can divorce. In the ’90s, other religious leaders said marriage in the absence of a “covenant” encourages “homosexual or polygamous marriage.”
• Ken Graves, a pastor who preaches against the rise of “militant homofascism,” whatever that is.
• Former U.S. Rep. Bob McEwen, who now works as a lobbyist for the Pro-Family Legislative Network, where he spends his time writing bills aimed at “strengthening family values” across America. (Coincidentally, McEwen also worked as a lobbyist for former Côte d’Ivoire dictator Laurent Gbagbo, who was arrested by the United Nations in 2012 for widespread human rights violations.)

But, mostly, it’s Rubio we’re worried about. Oh, and Mat(t) Staver, who hates us. We called both the Liberty Counsel and the Florida Renewal Project, and, as the eventbrite.com invite for the event shows, the Aug. 12 affair is basically open to only pastors and youth pastors; no telling how those credentials are justified.

We were also told that there will be no media engagement, no mind that Rubio is a public figure running for senator (again). The social media world is abuzz with talks of protest, so we’ll see where that goes. For now, we’ll just harbor a little bit of shame as we prepare for our weekend. Rubio isn’t running on support for the victims of the Pulse massacre. He’s running on the backs of those who died. This is disgusting. We’ll have more later.