Anti-Gay Hate Group Will Bring Fox News, GOP Hopefuls On A Trip To Israel

Trip Will Feature GOP Presidential Hopefuls And Fox's Todd Starnes

Special Programs LGBTQ

Written by Carlos Maza

Published

For the second time this year, an anti-LGBT hate group is hosting a trip to Israel that will feature prominent figures from the Republican Party. The event will also feature Fox radio host Todd Starnes.

On October 27, the Family Research Council (FRC) will host its first ever eleven-day "Holy Land Tour" -- a “unique, one-of-a kind tour” where guests will “explore the land of the Bible and the roots of our Christian faith” and meet with “some of Israel's political and religious leaders.”

According to the tour's brochure, the $5,000 trip features “insightful Bible teaching” and meetings with Israeli leaders aimed at providing guests with “a better understanding of Israel's important role in current geopolitical affairs and biblical prophecy.”

The tour will feature a number of “special guests” including former Senator Rick Santorum, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), and Fox News commentator Todd Starnes, who has a history of acting as FRC's mouthpiece and peddling anti-LGBT rhetoric on Fox.

FRC was labeled an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in 2010 due to the group's peddling of false and damaging smears about the LGBT community. The tour will also feature FRC's president Tony Perkins, who has described pedophilia as a "homosexual problem," accused the “It Gets Better” campaign of trying to "recruit" kids into a “lifestyle” of “perversion,” and praised Uganda for criminalizing homosexuality.

National Republicans were widely lampooned earlier this year for participating in a similar hate group-led trip to Israel. In February, the Republican National Committee faced criticism for sending national committee members on a 9-day trip to Israel paid for by the American Family Association (AFA), which has also been labeled a hate group by SPLC. Even conservative activists criticized the RNC for aligning with a group like AFA. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus eventually pulled out of the event, and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported that AFA demoted one of their most inflammatory spokesmen in the midst of the controversy.