TIMES SQUARE — Dozens of ministers, reverends and rabbis gathered Tuesday to protest presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's rhetoric on everything from immigration to gay rights ahead of a meeting between the candidate and Christian leaders in Midtown.
"I want to see an election that reflects the needs of our people. We are immigrant, we are LGBTQI, we are blacks, we are Asian, we are multi-faith," said Crystal Walthall, a 31-year-old program coordinator at Faith in New York. "We want to see a result that speaks to these things."
Many of the protesters came out to the event outside the Times Square Marriott starting at 9 a.m. Tuesday to decry Trump’s stance on immigration. His stance doesn’t fit with Christian faith, Reverend Andrew Wilkes, 30, said.
"Welcoming strangers is not just a suggestion, it's a moral imperative guided by faith,” Wilkes said.
Trump planned to meet with hundreds of Christian leaders Tuesday afternoon inside the Times Square Marriott. Wilkes said he wanted to make clear to the GOP candidate that those tapped for the meeting don’t represent all faiths or all Christians, Wilkes said.
Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
As the associate pastor of Greater Allen A. M. E. Cathedral of New York in Queens, Wilkes wants to see someone in the White House who will focus on welcoming immigrants to the country.
Reverend Angelo Seda, 51, said Hillary Clinton, who has a history of bringing people together, deserves the presidency.
“I'm putting my attention on what I want to see and what I want to see is a world where all people are treated with kindness and love,” Seda, who leads a Bronx-based LGBT interfaith church, said.
"The Republican candidate is choosing at this point to fill the atmosphere with a smoke screen of divisiveness and fear,” Seda said.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered in front of Trump Tower Tuesday evening to protest Trump's words about the LGBTQI community following the Orlando shooting.
"We believe that the entire media, and especially Donald Trump, overlooked the role of homophobia in the attack in Orlando," said Steven Helmke, 53, a facilitator with Act Up, who helped organize the protest.
"Everybody chalked it up as an ISIS attack instead of discussing the way homophobia was an active force in it."
