Marco Rubio to star at antigay rally -- weeks after his crocodile tears for Pulse massacre victims

Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R) may have said he was “deeply impacted” by the murder of 50 LGBT people at Florida nightclub Pulse last month, but that will not prevent him from attending a rally to be held August 11-12 by a coalition of viciously antigay groups. 

According to Right Wing Watch, Rubio will be the special guest of the “Rediscovering God in America Project” hosted by The Florida Renewal Project. The Florida group is an affiliate of the American Renewal Project, whose leader, David Lane, warns that tolerance of LGBT people  will lead to the "total destruction" of the United States.

According to Right Wing Watch, (a project of People for the American Way) David Lane has been quoted and written extensively about his phobia. Lane is convinced that gays will cause the destruction of America: "Homosexual desire and marriage is unnatural and — more so — is a symptom of advanced cultural decay and precursor to the collapse of the Republican Party and the nation.... The mark of a decadent society is the exaltation and normalization of sin — which leads to the death."

At the time of the shooting, multiple news outlets reported that Rubio, who had announced that he would not run for re-election to the Senate after his failed presidential bid, had been affected by the shooting at a gay nightclub that left 49 club-goers dead. Rubio told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on June 12, "My family and I will praying about all of this, and we'll see what I need to do next in regards to how I can best serve."

Rubio is locked in a primary battle with a a pro-Trump businessman who has taken out attack ads alleging that the incumbent senator is both anti-Trump and soft on immigration.

Rubio will share a stage with some of the most anti-LGBT speakers out on the rightwing speakers' circuit. One of them, Mat Staver, is attorney for Kentucky hate clerk Kim Davis. Staver compared his client's "persecution" to the same fate suffered by victims of the Holocaust, and has compared gays to "terrorists." Other people on the speakers list with Rubio include those who believe that AIDS is a "divine penalty" for homosexuality; another who argues that all gay people are "depressed;" and, another who links being gay with an Islamist takeover of America.

A full list of the speakers at the August event is here.