Trump, Cruz Smooch on a Giant Cleveland Billboard

Anti-homophobia message in sign located near GOP convention site
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 15, 2016 9:44 AM CDT
Trump, Cruz Smooch on a Giant Cleveland Billboard
A powerful statement.   (Planting Peace, via the Huffington Post)

First they painted a house across from the Westboro Baptist Church the colors of the rainbow. On Thursday the Planting Peace charity erected its next measure of support for the LGBT community: a giant billboard on West 25th Street in Cleveland showing Donald Trump and Ted Cruz about to smooch. It's located just a few minutes' ride from where the Republican National Convention will kick off Monday, the Huffington Post reports. "Love Trumps Hate. End Homophobia," the sign reads. Mashable reports it'll be up for a month, and it notes it's not the first time Planting Peace has used billboards as a social justice tool: The group has put up signs in North Carolina and Mississippi for LGBT rights as well.

CNN notes that one of the most prominent topics for GOPers toiling away on their party's platform in advance of the convention was LGBT issues, and the 112-member panel has rebuffed some delegates' efforts to adopt a more moderate stance toward gay Americans. Instead, the panel is going forward with a platform that protects businesses refusing to serve patrons in the name of religious liberty; approves of bathroom restrictions for transgender people; and opposes same-sex marriage. "What Donald, Ted, and the Republican platform either fail to realize, or realize and just don't seem to care about, is that their words and actions toward our LGBT family—especially LGBT children—have meaning and impact," a message about the billboard on the Planting Peace website reads. (More Donald Trump stories.)

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