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 Steve Jalsevac/LifeSite

WASHINGTON D.C., April 19, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – LGBT lobbying behemoth the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has launched a large national campaign against Vice President Mike Pence, targeting his Christian views on marriage and sexuality, abortion, and religious liberty.

Pence is now LGBT Inc.’s biggest bogeyman, whose principled Christian opposition to much of what HRC stands for will be used to scare self-identifying gays, lesbians, transgenders, and others into filling HRC’s coffers.

Similar to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), HRC relies on scaremongering as a marketing tool in order to keep its organization going. That sort of modus operandi can sometimes produce disastrous consequences by inciting physical violence. In 2012, a young gay man, inspired by SPLC’s “Hate List,” opened fire with a 9mm pistol in the Family Research Council’s lobby, wounding a building manager.  

The twenty-page glossy report demonizing the Vice President as an extremist on LGBT and abortion issues sports the same type of grainy, incendiary cover photo as similar past HRC reports, which gratuitously incite fear in order to fundraise. A short companion video employs similar visual tactics, accompanied by urgent, ominous-sounding background music.

Much of what the HRC-produced report identifies as Pence’s “dangerous extremist” views are unremarkably normal for Christians and conservatives across the country.

According to HRC, Pence’s greatest offenses have been his support of the immutable definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, his efforts to fight the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and standing up for religious liberty while governor of Indiana by signing the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

HRC casts blame on Pence for lobbying Congress to ban the U.S. military from paying for “gender reassignment surgery” as vice president. Additionally, HRC suspects that Pence was behind President Trump’s “transgender military ban.”

HRC also cites Pence’s pro-life, anti-abortion views as being part of his “nefarious agenda.” Pence has been a leader in national efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Earlier this year, he famously predicted that abortion will end in America “in our time.”

“Mike Pence has made a career out of attacking the rights and equal dignity of LGBTQ people, women and other marginalized communities. Now as vice president, he poses one of the greatest threats to equality in the history of our movement,” said HRC President Chad Griffin in a statement. “With the world distracted by Donald Trump’s scandal-ridden White House, Mike Pence’s nefarious agenda has been allowed to fly under the radar for too long. He has become not only the most powerful vice president in American history, but also the least scrutinized.”

“No more,” added Griffin.  “With this comprehensive new report, HRC is exposing the extent of Pence’s extremism, the threat he poses to equality, and all that we’re doing to combat his hateful agenda.”

“With his ready access to the levers of national power, no vice president in history has wielded more influence – and with less scrutiny – than Mike Pence,” asserts an HRC statement. “His deliberate benign anonymity, coupled with the nation’s growing alarm at the shocking skulduggery of Trump and his cronies, has largely given Pence an undeserved free ride in the court of public opinion.”

Referencing a scene from The Wizard of Oz, HRC says its report “pulls back the curtain” on “Mike Pence and his inner circle to dispel the specious notion that Mike Pence is the ‘rational’ voice in this unhinged administration. That narrative defies reality, ignoring the deeply troubling history of this deeply discriminatory politician and his aggressive agenda to advance an extremist ideology.”

“I think the most likely thing here is that Pence is an easy target for the Human Rights Campaign to raise money from,” said Republican strategist Rick Tyler. “Every special interest group, and Human Rights Campaign is not alone, has a bogey man, and theirs is Mike Pence.”

The Human Rights Campaign has an annual income of over $66 million and its total assets reported for 2017 were over $40 million. The group enjoys the endorsement of a number of left-wing celebrities.

According to the HRC website, its Washington headquarters “provides an ample workspace for HRC's staff of more than 150. It also houses the stunning Equality Center, a meeting and event space available for rent, and the HRC Media Center, a state-of-the-art multimedia production facility.”