Rachel Maddow lifts the curtain on “Kill the Gays” conference

On Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC program last night, Maddow revealed that three GOP Presidential contenders had attended the National Religious Liberties Conference last weekend in Des Moines, IA. The host of the conference was Kevin Swanson, a right-wing extremist pastor, who made his views on gays crystal clear: They should be rounded up and executed.

Maddow showed video from the conference showing Swanson making a rambling, hate-filled rant in which he called for the (in his opinion) biblical punishment for homosexuality repeatedly.

The video also showed GOP contenders Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal and Ted Cruz being welcomed by Swanson, and being questioned by him. While Huckabee and Jindal have virtually no hope of gaining the Republican nomination, Cruz is now placing third in some polls of GOP voters.

Right Wing Watch, in reporting on the Maddow segment, said, “Swanson’s views on homosexuality were well-known even before he hosted the weekend’s National Religious Liberties Conference, and he wasn’t the only speaker at the conference who had called for homosexuality to be treated as a capital crime.

“One conference speaker distributed literature at the event laying out how and why gay people should be put to death, discussing stoning and throwing people off cliffs as possible punishments. In fact, Swanson’s views are so extreme and so easy to find that one presidential candidate [reportedly Dr. Ben Carson] reportedly pulled out of the event once their campaign was tipped off to his radicalism.”

“A pretty major theme of the event both in terms of the literature that was available at the event and the way the host of the conference spoke from the stage, a significant theme was the practical challenges and the timing of how exactly and when exactly the United States of America should start rounding up gay people in this country in order to execute them,” Maddow said in the clip of the segment on MSNBC.com.

“It really was a ‘kill-the-gays’ call to arms,” Maddow continued. “This was a conference about the necessity of the death penalty as a punishment for homosexuality.”

Right Wing Watch concluded, “Seeing that the Republicans who appeared at this event will be at the Fox Business debates tonight, Maddow said it might be worth asking them why they would attend ‘a kill-the-gays rally.’

“’I don’t know if that is considered to be a scandal anymore in Republican politics,’ she said.”

View the segment of The Rachel Maddow Show at www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/anti-gay-pastor-event-hosts-3-gop-candidates-563178051820.

The Gayly – November 10, 2015 @ 1:30 p.m.