White House Hosts Christian Leader Who Implied Trans People in Bathrooms Should be Shot

As LGBTQ advocates scramble to head off a crisis of transgender murders in the U.S., the Trump White House sat down for dinner with a Christian leader who advocates shooting transgender people who dare use public bathrooms.

On Monday, The White House hosted James Dobson, along with a spate of vehement anti-LGBTQ religious leaders, at a dinner celebrating Evangelical leaders.

Dobson, the infamous anti-gay activist who founded Focus on the Family, implied transgender people should be murdered in bathrooms, after President Obama directed schools to allow students to use a bathroom corresponding with their gender identity in 2016.

Writing for World Net Daily, Dobson described transgender people as perverts.

“If you are a dad, I pray you will protect your little girls from men who walk in unannounced, unzip their pants and urinate in front of them,” he wrote. “If this had happened 100 years ago, someone might have been shot. Where is today’s manhood? God help us!”

Vice President Mike Pence tweeted a photo of himself strolling with Dobson and their wives on Monday.

Dobson was not the only radioactive figure embraced by the White House Monday night. Ivanka Trump, who reportedly worked behind the scenes to convince her father to keep Obama-era LGBTQ workplace protections, has been roundly criticized for posing for photos with anti-gay champion Jim Garlow, who also managed to squeeze into shots with Trump, Pence, Kellyanne Conway and Melania Trump.

Garlow has repeatedly claimed that same-sex marriage is the work of Satan. According to GLAAD, Garlow thinks Christians should rise up the way they did during the Revolutionary War.

“They would pick up a musket and ask: ‘Who’s going to go fight with me?’” Garlow said. “And so the revolutionary armies during that time came from pastors leading the churches. It’s known as the Black-Robed Regiment. And we need a black-robed regiment today. We need pastors who are willing to stand up. And we need persons who are in the pews to stand up with them…”

Other attendees included Tony Perkins who heads up the Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group the Family Research Council and former lawmaker Alveda King who said same-sex marriage would lead to genocide, among other anti-LGBTQ champions.

President Trump gave the group a warm welcome in a speech that celebrated his administration’s Conscience Protections, which, if implemented, will grant health care providers the right discriminate against transgender people.

“Melania and I are thrilled to welcome you,” he told the gathering. “And these are very special friends of mine, Evangelical pastors, and leaders from all across the nation.”

The Trump administration’s coziness with anti-LGBTQ hate groups is well-established. In March, the White House hosted Tyson Langhofer, an attorney at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), another designated anti-LGBTQ hate group, as well as extreme anti-LGBTQ activist Charlie Kirk. Earlier this month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions claimed that the White House “does not partner” with hate groups, a message that was undercut by the fact that he delivered those comments to hate group ADF.

In a scathing statement, GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis called on news outlets to point out the extreme anti-LGBTQ animus of those in attendance at the White House dinner Monday.  

“The President and Administration’s practice of bringing fringe groups united around hatred towards LGBTQ Americans through the White House gates cannot go unnoticed and must be called out and checked,” Ellis said.

Images via Getty