Donald Trump is speaking at a summit organised by anti-LGBT group

Donald Trump is speaking at a summit on Friday organised by a group that says homosexuality is ‘harmful’ and ‘unnatural’.

The Voters Value Summit is held by the Family Research Council, a group that campaigns against same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights, and is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Mr Trump has addressed the summit three times in the past, but will this week become the first sitting president to address the summit.

The Family Research Council says that its mission is ‘to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a Christian worldview’.

Its website’s page on homosexuality reads: ‘Family Research Council believes that homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed.

‘It is by definition unnatural, and as such is associated with negative physical and psychological health effects.

‘While the origins of same-sex attractions may be complex, there is no convincing evidence that a homosexual identity is ever something genetic or inborn.

‘We oppose the vigorous efforts of homosexual activists to demand that homosexuality be accepted as equivalent to heterosexuality in law, in the media, and in schools.’

The group’s head Tony Perkins has linked homosexuality with paedophilia, and claimed that the gay community is working to ‘recruit’ children.

‘While activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two,’ he wrote on the FRC website.

‘It is a homosexual problem.’

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The Southern Poverty Law Center, an advocacy group that campaigns against ‘hate and bigotry’, criticised the President for speaking at the event.

‘By appearing at the Values Voter Summit, President Trump is lending the legitimacy of his office to a hate group that relentlessly demonizes LGBT people and works to deny them of their equal rights,’ said a statement.

‘His appearance puts the lie to his campaign promise to be a friend to the LGBT community. Bigotry is not an American value, and our president should speak out against it.’

Other speakers at the event include former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who has links with the white supremacist alt-right movement, and Mat Staver, the founder of Liberty Counsel, who works to legalise anti-LGBT discrimination on the grounds of ‘religious liberty’.

FRC leader Tony Perkins’ home was destroyed by a flood in 2016 after he preached that God sends natural disasters to punish gay people.