By Richard Hack
NEW YORK–As many advances toward equality that have been achieved in corporate America, the insidious presence of discrimination is never far behind as witnessed this week when the Timothy Plan listed two new “Biblically Responsible” Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and its founder rung the bell to open the session on October 21.
Joining Timothy Plan founder Arthur Ally at the ceremony was Mat Staver, head of the anti-LGBTQ Liberty Counsel Christian Ministry and board member of Timothy Plan. The Liberty Counsel has been listed as an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Staver is the former Dean of Liberty University’s Law School. He is an outspoken pro-life advocate and unsuccessfully defended Kim Davis, the former Rowan County clerk in Kentucky who had repeatedly refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples .
While continually contesting Liberty Counsel’s designation as a hate group, Staver’s has not hesitated to attack members of the LGBTQ community, including calling the “Q” a designation of “somebody who wants to have sexual relationships with someone under the legal age.” Staver has also denounced the Equality Act as “an LGBT propaganda bill” and unsuccessfully attempted to have LGBTQs removed from the Victims of Lynching Act passed by the Senate in 2018.