A billboard depicting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his former rival Ted Cruz in a passionate embrace has been unveiled in Cleveland just in time for the Republican National Convention.
The billboard features the two sharing a smooch in a reimagining of the famous Berlin Wall mural of Leonid Brezhnev kissing Erich Honecker.
Created by global non-profit Planting Peace, it reads, “Love Trumps Hate. End Homophobia.”
Explaining its billboard campaign, Planting Peace said: “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. LGBT children hear these messages telling them they are nothing but second-class citizens and are left feeling somehow broken or ‘less than.’”
The group is calling for “immediate change in the Republican party platform with regard to our LGBT family and LGBT rights.”
The Republican party’s latest platform is anticipated to call for a reversal of the Supreme Court’s 2015 legalization of gay marriage, and could include references to endorsing conversion therapy. The platform is perceived as being so anti-LGBT that some Republicans feel it is not representative of the diverse views among the party’s voters.
Cruz, who courts the evangelical Republican base, is not one of them. He has attacked fellow Republicans for taking part in Pride marches, makes numerous statements opposing LGBT rights and has voiced concerns that “mandatory gay marriage in all 50 states” is a threat.
Trump, who has said on the campaign trail he is against same-sex marriage, recently told a crowd in Dallas that the LGBT community “is starting to like Donald Trump very, very much lately.”
The GOP delegates are due to vote on proposed platform amendments on Monday and Tuesday, during the Republican Convention.
Planting Peace famously bought a house opposite the Westboro Baptist Church and painted it in rainbow colors to counteract, and enrage, the hate group and its homophobic messages.