One Iowa in the News: One Iowa, HRC respond to Rick Perry Iowa ad

from The Des Moines Register.

In a new ad that will air in Iowa, Rick Perry focuses on gays and prayers and says he would stop “liberal attacks” on religion if elected president.

Civil rights advocates immediately criticized the ad as an attack on gays.

...Troy Price, executive director of the civil rights group One Iowa, this morning called the new ad “a desperate attempt to salvage a flailing campaign.”

“Perry is pandering to the ultra-conservative vote in Iowa, and is doing so on the backs of patriotic gay and lesbians who only want to serve their country in the military,” Price said in a written statement.

Polls overwhelmingly show support for allowing gays and lesbians to serve, and the debate over ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is over, Price said.

Perry has a “strong anti-gay track record,” said Sharon Groves of the Human Rights Campaign, a national civil rights organization.

“We cannot be in the business of forcing people to choose between who they are, who they love, and their faith. Rick Perry’s rhetoric presumes that you can’t be Christian and supportive of LGBT people. Yet many Christians see in Jesus’ example a call to love and support their LGBT neighbors,” Groves said in a statement this morning.

Read the full article from The Des Moines Register.
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