GOP airs ad with hate pastor who called LGBTQ people “child molesters”

Kari Lake speaking with attendees at a “Unite & Win Rally” at Arizona Financial Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona – 14 August 2022
Photo: Gage Skidmore – Wikimedia Commons

Kari Lake, the Republican running for governor of Arizona, is airing an ad starring fundamentalist Desert Bible Church pastor Justin Erickson.

In the ad, Erickson is identified as a small business owner, although the ad doesn’t say what his business is. He complains about inflation, which he blames on Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs.

In a 2014 sermon, Erickson claimed that “50 percent of the homosexual LGBT-Now-Q community, 50 percent have AIDS.” Later he said, “80 percent of homosexuals have STDs and – how sad is this? – two percent, two percent of homosexuals in the LGBT community make it to the age of 65. The average lifespan for an average person in our world is 75. Those in the LGBT community, most of them don’t make it to 39.”

He also made up numbers about promiscuity: “The average homosexual has had in a lifetime over 500 sexual partners. Eighty percent admit that half of them are absolute total strangers. Thirty percent of those who commit homosexuality, 30 percent, have had over 1000 partners. Three hundred different people a year.” A 2013 survey found that the average number of sexual partners men who have sex with men had in the previous year was 2.3.

Erickson, of course, wasn’t all that concerned with LGBTQ people’s health because he went on to falsely imply that LGBTQ people are more likely to…

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