Fl.Gov.DeSantis Spent$100K To Get Anti Gay Evangelicals Endorsement Yet Still A'Woke'
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| The governor's war on “woke” is going to cost him the presidency. Floridians will be left to face the consequences. |
Florida governor Ron DeSantis and his financial backers have donated almost $100,000 to an evangelical Christian nonprofit with ties to an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group, in an apparent attempt to curry favor with a conservative political “kingmaker” ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
DeSantis’ presidential campaign, the super PAC Never Back Down, and the 501(c)4 nonprofit And to the Republic gave a combined $95,000 to The Family Leader Foundation, an Iowa nonprofit headed by influential evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, according to documents obtained by Reuters.
The donations came in advance of The Family Leader’s “Family Leadership Conference” held on July 14, which featured DeSantis and other Republican presidential candidates including U.S. Senator Tim Scott and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. The DeSantis campaign paid $25,000 for an ad in the event’s commemorative booklet, plus an invitation to a post-event dinner organized by the conference with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson; Never Back Down paid $50,000 for a two-page ad in the booklet and tickets to the dinner, while And to the Republic bought a table at the dinner for $20,000.
Those hoping to win Iowa’s Republican caucus have pursued Vander Plaats’ endorsement for years, although his endorsed candidates — which have included then-presidential hopefuls Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee — have not always gone on to win the party’s nomination, let alone their general elections. Vander Plaats told Reuters that his endorsements are “not for sale,” but political analysts say he is well aware of the role he plays in conservative politics. “Vander Plaats clearly understands his political power, his kingmaker status in Iowa, and how thirsty candidates are for his endorsement,” said attorney and former watchdog legal analyst Paul S. Ryan.
Regardless of whether all those DeSantis dollars influence Vander Plaats’ endorsement decisions or not, the Florida governor has now given a major financial boon to an organization that’s part of a notorious hate network. The Family Leader organization is a state affiliate of the Family Research Council, which has long been recognized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its extreme opposition to LGBTQ+ civil and human rights. Although the FRC claims to have “no corporate or financial relationship” with its state policy affiliates, groups like the Family Leader act in practice as regional lobbying wings for FRC’s mission — or as the organization puts it, share “common core beliefs in the sanctity of human life and in the institution of marriage.”
FRC founder and president Tony Perkins, a former advisor to Donald Trump, has for years pushed the false claim that LGBTQ+ adults are dangerous to children. Perkins has accused LGBTQ+ people of “luring children into sexual confusion” and infiltrating the Boy Scouts for “predatory purposes,” claimed transgender people are a slippery slope to “saying that you’re an animal,” and in 2001 spoke at a conference for the white nationalist group Council of Conservative Citizens while claiming not to know their beliefs. The FRC is itself part of a network of religious extremists organizing opposition to the inclusion of trans students in schools, has helped boost voter suppression efforts in Georgia, and influenced the passage of laws like Arkansas’ House Bill 1570, which have led the families of some trans children to flee the state.
Ron DeSantis
Why Ron DeSantis' Campaign for President Is Imploding
The governor's war on “woke” is going to cost him the presidency. Floridians will be left to face the consequences.
All of this is bread and butter for DeSantis, of course, who has made opposition to anything “woke” — in particular, anti-racism and LGBTQ+ rights — a load-bearing plank in his 2024 presidential platform. While shoveling money into the FRC network, DeSantis has this year banned trans people from government bathrooms, organized a takeover of a progressive school board, and signed five anti-trans laws on issues like gender-affirming medical care and drag performances in a single day.
But with his campaign rapidly deteriorating amid drastic layoffs and last month’s scandal over a former staffer who spread Nazi imagery in pro-DeSantis memes, the governor is likely in desperate need of someone like Vander Plaats to give him a bump in the polls — which this week find him in third place behind other Trump challengers Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie. Here’s hoping DeSantis’ race to capture the evangelical vote finds him on the Santorum path in more ways than one.
THEM
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