Make America Straight Again is gearing up for its 2020 conference and at least three speakers want LGBT+ people dead
Protesters at the Make America Straight Again 2019 conference. (hannsammich_/ Twitter)
The Make America Straight Again conference is coming back for 2020, and at least three speakers want LGBT+ people dead.
The first Make America Straight Again conference was held last year, when it was horrifically timed to coincide with the third anniversary of the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting.
The free three-day event brings together some of America’s most anti-gay, anti-LGBT+ and generally bigoted evangelical pastors, and this year will be organised by hate preacher Steven Anderson.
At last year’s event in Orlando, Anderson confronted protestors and said he wished “every homo would die”.
The hate preacher openly celebrated the Pulse massacre in 2016, telling his congregation: “The good news is that there’s 50 less paedophiles in this world, because, you know, these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and paedophiles.”
Make America Straight Again 2020 will be held at Anderson’s church, Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, between October 29 and October 31, 2020.
Make America Straight Again 2020 speakers celebrated Pulse shooting.
Although Anderson has not released much information about this year’s event, he has announced a truly heinous line-up of speakers, many of whom are returning after appearances last year.
Pastor Patrick Boyle of Revival Baptist Church will be back, who last year said of the conference: “They are beyond reach, the Sodomites. We are not trying to reach them. We are trying to warn society that if we embrace that, you are going to lose your children … The schools are telling them it’s an alternative lifestyle choice.”
Pastor Grayson Fritts, formerly a detective, will also be taking the stage at the conference.
Fritts believes that governments should “enforce Leviticus” and execute LGBT+ people, and once said in a sermon: “The Bible says the powers that be are ordained of God, and God has instilled the power of civil government to send the police in 2019 out to these LGBT freaks and arrest them and have a trial for them, and if they are convicted then they are to be put to death… You let the judges hear the cause and you put that animal to death.”
Detective Grayson Fritts has been relieved of duties following video sermon of him calling for the death of LGBTQ folks.
I’m sure he will commit a hate crime any day now.#PrideMonth pic.twitter.com/51UqBBYwXi
— Khary Penebaker (@kharyp) June 16, 2019
Texas hate preacher Roger Jimenez is another Make America Straight Again 2020 speaker who has publicly celebrated the Pulse shooting.
He gave a sermon the day of the massacre, which left 49 dead and 53 injured, and said: “The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die. Florida is a little safer tonight”.
He added: “What if you asked me: ‘Are you sad that 50 paedophiles were killed today?’… No, I think that’s great… I think that helps society.”
The Verity Baptist Church pastor later spoke to CBS Sacramento, refusing to apologise, saying he wished “they finished the job”.
Anderson has said that more details on the Make America Straight Again 2020 conference will be released “soon”.
