Fort Lauderdale, Florida’s City Commissioners Tuesday evening will honor Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Westminster Academy. Included in those proclamations is the church’s founder, Dr. D. James Kennedy, whose D. James Kennedy Ministries appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups.
Fort Lauderdale’s mayor, who is also its first gay mayor, Dean Trantalis, will sign the proclamations making March 21, 2021 Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church Day and Westminster Academy Day, as South Florida Gay News reports.
Florida LGBTQ activist Michael Rajner posted the proclamations:
A search of the D. James Kennedy Ministries website shows hundreds of articles on homosexuality. Some of them include “Freedom from Homosexuality through the Gospel,” “Brazen Attacks on Marriage,” and “Sexual Anarchy Puts Religious Liberty at Risk.”
Truth Wins Out, an LGBT equality non-profit, calls the proclamations “no different than honoring the KKK.”
“It’s outrageous to honor Coral Ridge. It is no different than honoring the KKK. This church lied about LGBT people, produced hate propaganda and perpetuated the “ex-gay” hoax. They have NEVER apologized for ruining lives. Stop this madness!”
TWO offers some background into Kennedy and Coral Ridge in a press release:
In 1998, the Truth in Love Campaign was hatched at Coral Ridge, led by Janet Folger Porter. The $600,000 effort placed full-page ads in newspapers with “ex-gays” claiming that gay and trans people who prayed and went to conversion therapy could “change”. This resulted in an avalanche of media coverage, including a Newsweek cover story headlined, “Gay for Life?” During that campaign, Folger Porter said on Nightline that she supported sodomy laws that would lead to the arrest and imprisonment of LGBTQ people. As part of Truth in Love, Coral Ridge flew an airplane over Gay Days at Disney with large banner that had an “ex-gay” message.
Researcher Alvin McEwen points out that Kennedy also endorsed a horrifying anti-LGBTQ cartoon book, Homosexuality: Legitimate, Alternative Deathstyle. The book libels LGBTQ people with fake statistics, such as “41% more gays than heterosexuals admitted to shoplifting!”