Any Republican Presidential candidate hoping to cinch the nomination has to get through Iowa first. That means a mandatory trip to the Iowa State Fair and tons of photo-ops with fried food and cute babies. But there’s one important stop you likely haven’t heard of: a visit to kiss the ring of The Family Leader CEO Bob Vander Plaats.
On Friday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy are in Iowa for a Thanksgiving forum hosted by Vander Plaats. Now, there’s nothing unusual about courting the support of powerful Christian conservatives like Vander Plaats. But Vander Plaats isn’t just any Iowa faith leader.
In 2011, Vander Plaat’s group, The Family Leader, released a... questionable pledge for Republican primary candidates to sign. It’s no longer on their website, but luckily, most of it can be found on the Huffington Post, and it’s a doozy.
The “Marriage Vow” included a bizarre list of demands that managed to be anti-woman, anti-LGBTQ+ people, and anti-Black. (This is an aside, but it was also felt very focused on people’s sexual pleasure for a political pledge created by conservative Christians.)
One part of the preamble of pledge is a real stand-out. It reads: “Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”
As it turns out, Vander Plaats was about a decade ahead of forum-attendee Governor DeSantis on the whole slavery re-brand thing. I mean, hey, at least enslaved people had two parents... unless, of course, they or their parents were sold off or died while living under the inhumane conditions of chattel slavery.
The language about slavery was later removed after candidates who signed it started to receive (understandable) backlash. But it’s a pretty bad look that it was there in the first place.
The Democratic National Committee exclusively shared their response to the forum with the Root. “Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are spending their day desperately trying to win the endorsement of Bob Vander Plaats, a far-right extremist whose racist views should be condemned by any serious candidate for president,” wrote DNC National Press Secretary Sarafina Chitika, in a statement. “Vander Plaats’ FAMiLY Leader, ‘Thanksgiving Family Forum’, wouldn’t be welcoming to many American families, including those with women serving in the armed forces and Americans who categorically reject the notion that slavery was beneficial to Black families. If voters had any doubt, today Republican candidates are showing they’ll stoop to any low to win over the extreme MAGA base.”
For what it’s worth, this isn’t the only time Vander Plaats has shared his questionable opinions about race. He also joined up with former President Donald Trump to push the Birtherism conspiracy.
The forum began at 3 pm E.T. And with Vander Plaat’s track record, it seems like an interesting (or potentially horrifying) watch.