Donald Trump's presidential campaign on
Tuesday announced the formation of his Evangelical Executive Advisory
Board after meeting privately with hundreds of religious leaders.
“I have such tremendous respect and
admiration for this group and I look forward to continuing to talk
about the issues important to Evangelicals, and all Americans, and
the common sense solutions I will implement when I am President,”
Trump said in a statement.
The 22-member board includes former
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Focus on the Family founder James
Dobson, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr., Cross Church
senior pastor Ronnie Floyd, Hope Christian Church senior pastor Harry
Jackson, televangelist Kenneth Copeland, First Baptist Church of
Dallas senior pastor Robert Jeffress, and Faith and Freedom Coalition
founder Ralph Reed.
Bachmann spent much of her political
career heaving anti-gay rhetoric and denouncing President Barack
Obama's “dangerous policies.”
As a Minnesota state senator, Bachmann
sponsored a resolution which sought to constitutionally define
marriage as a heterosexual union.
At a 2012 event sponsored by the
Christian conservative group The Family Leader, Bachmann said she was
prompted to introduce the amendment by the 2003 Massachusetts Supreme
Court decision that legalized gay nuptials in that state.
Bachmann, a 2012 candidate for the
Republican presidential nomination, has blamed the imminent rapture
on President
Barack Obama's support for marriage equality and a nuclear arms
deal with Iran.
Dobson has warned that allowing gay
couples to marry would lead to a second civil war and the end of
religious freedom.
Jeffress has warned that gay rights
will “pave the way for the future world dictator, the Antichrist,”
while Floyd once said that Satan
is using the “gay lifestyle” to destroy cultural values.
The
board's formation comes as Trump continues to assert that he's a
better friend to the LGBT community than Hillary Clinton, his
Democratic rival.