Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday
that he was surprised by criticism of his wife, Karen Pence, working
at a school that bans LGBT students and families.
The Second Lady is teaching art at a
school that does not allow LGBT students or students with LGBT
families to enroll and refuses to employ LGBT individuals.
According to The Hill, Pence
made his comments during an event hosted by the Christian
conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
“We honestly didn't see that one
coming,” Pence said. “Our kids went to the school when I was in
Congress.”
When asked how he handles online
critics, Pence answered: “No. 1 is spend more time on your knees
than on the Internet.”
“As a Christian believer, we're
charged to pray for our loved ones but also pray for our enemies. You
have lots of opportunities in politics to do that.”
“Forgiveness is a great gift, and my
wife and I literally try to work through forgiving people who might
speak woefully against us or might mischaracterize who we are and
what our family’s all about,” he
added.
Pence also said that the mass shootings
in El Paso and Dayton over the weekend that left more than 30 people
dead and injured dozens were “acts of pure evil.”
“Hate has no place in America, and
the sinister ideologies of racism, bigotry and white supremacy must
be defeated,” Pence said.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in
2016 was designated a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law
Center (SPLC) for its opposition to LGBT rights.
“[The ADF is a] hate group that
cloaks itself in religion as it spreads demonizing lies about the
LGBT community in this country and seeks to criminalize it abroad,”
the SPLC said in 2017. “If the ADF had its way, gay people would be
back in the closet for fear of going to jail.”