An anti-Trump video shared by the DeSantis campaign is ‘homophobic,’ a conservative LGBT group says

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NEW YORK (AP) A prominent group representing LGBT conservatives said a video shared by the Ron DeSantis presidential campaign criticizing rival Donald Trump for his past support of gay and transgender people has ventured into homophobic territory.

The DeSantis War Room Twitter account shared the video on Friday on the last day of Junes LGBTQ+ Pride Month featuring footage of Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention saying he will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens. Trump promised protection from terrorist attacks weeks after the shootings at Pulse Nightclub, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which was the deadliest shooting in US history at the time.

The video also features LGBTQ for Trump T-shirts sold by the former president’s campaign and his past comments saying he would be comfortable with Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic decathlete who came out as a transgender woman in 2015. using any bathroom in Trump Tower and OK with transgender women competing one day in the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned during those remarks.

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The video suddenly veers in a different direction, accompanied by dark, brooding music and images of DeSantis, the Florida governor trailing Trump by a wide margin in the polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

It’s promoting headlines that DeSantis signed the most extreme set of anti-trans laws in modern history and a draconian anti-trans bathroom bill. The images were interspersed with footage of muscular, shirtless men and several Hollywood actors, including Brad Pitt, who was seen wearing a leather mask from the movie Troy.

To wrap up Pride Month, let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate, the DeSantis campaign tweeted.

The video drew immediate criticism from prominent LGBTQ+ Republicans, including Log Cabin Republicans, which bills itself as the nation’s largest Republican organization dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives.

Today’s message from the DeSantis campaign War Room is divisive and desperate. Republicans and other commonsense conservatives know that Ron Desantis has alienated swing-state and younger voters, the group said in a tweet, adding that DeSantis extreme rhetoric only ventures into homophobic territory.

The group said his rhetoric would cost him dearly in critical races across the country. This old playbook has been tried in the past and failed — over and over again. The post said DeSantis naive policy positions are dangerous and politically stupid.

Jenner accuses the DeSantis campaign of using outrageous tactics!

DeSantis hit a new low, Jenner wrote on Twitter.

DeSantis campaign representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.

The video comes as Republicans tread increasingly hostile anti-LGBTQ+ territory, attacking Pride month celebrations, trying to ban the display of rainbow Pride flags and passing legislation to limit drag shows, along with widespread attacks on transgender rights.

That rhetoric has permeated the GOP presidential campaign, which has taken on a prominent role absent in previous competitive primaries, including in 2016, when Trump, a reality TV star in New York, typically showed his himself as a supporter of LGBT rights.

DeSantis has leaned on anti-LGBTQ+ legislation as he prepares to jump into the 2024 White House race. He signed legislation banning classroom teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in all grades, banned gender-affirming care for minors, targeted drag shows, restricted discussion of personal pronouns in schools and forced people to use bathrooms corresponding to the gender assigned at birth. DeSantis also went after President Joe Biden for prominently displaying the Pride flag at the White House last month.

Trump himself promised in a speech on Friday that if elected, he would sign executive orders on his first day in office to cut federal money for any school that promotes transgender insanity and to teach federal students agency to stop the promotion of sex or gender transition at any age. Hospitals and health care providers that offer gender-affirming care for minors should be deemed in violation of federal health and safety standards and lose federal funding, he said.

Both Trump and DeSantis have denounced transgender women participating in women’s sports and referred to gender-affirming care for minors as mutilation.

At Trumps rally in Pickens, South Carolina, on Saturday, the crowd booed when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Pride month.

The rainbow belongs to God, he said.

While such rhetoric appeals to the parties’ conservative base, it risks alienating more moderate and swing voters who typically decide general election results.

The video, originally posted by the pro-DeSantis @ProudElephantUS account, was shared hours after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled that a Christian graphic artist who wanted to design wedding websites could refuse to cooperate to same-sex couples.

The decision marked a major defeat for gay rights, with one of the court’s liberal justices writing in a dissent that the ruling would have the effect of branding gays and lesbians for second class status.

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