Likely Presidential contenders Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal will headline the American Renewal Project’s Pastors and Pews event in Iowa next week, according to the Des Moines Register. By leading the event, Cruz and Jindal ally themselves with one of the most inflammatory voices in the Republican Party: David Lane, who founded the American Renewal Project.

“By standing with David Lane, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal show their extreme anti-gay allegiances and their blatant disregard for the fundamental American value of embracing religious freedom,” said People For the American Way President Michael Keegan. “We deserve to know why Cruz and Jindal would align themselves with David Lane and this event.”

All members of the Republican National Committee (RNC) have been invited to attend the event. RNC chair Reince Priebus also has previously sung the praises of David Lane, and Priebus ignored calls from PFAW and others to cancel the recent RNC trip to Israel that Lane organized.

PFAW’s Right Wing Watch blog has long documented the bigoted statements of David Lane. Here are some of the key examples:

“Homosexuals praying at the Inauguration” of President Obama in 2013 will provoke God’s wrath in the form of “car bombs in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Des Moines, Iowa.” [7/23/13]

“Our long-term strategy must be to place the Bible in Public Schools as the principle [sic] textbook of American education.” [1/29/15]

“America was founded by Christians, as a Christian nation.” [7/17/13]

Republicans who support marriage equality are like politicians who backed slavery in the run-up to the Civil War. [1/29/15]

While “America was a Christian nation” since its founding, now it must choose between being “a Christian nation or a pagan nation.” [7/17/13]

Americans “grovel to the false god of Islam”; “America, a Christian nation in heritage and culture, is being dismantled brick by brick.” [1/29/15]

See more here.

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