The American Family Association is shamefully exploiting the Orlando massacre to drive support for its anti-trans boycott of Target.

At least 49 people were killed and 53 were injured in the shooting at the Pulse gay club in Orlando over the weekend.

With more than a hundred now confirmed dead or injured, the shooting is the worst in American history.

Despite the massacre being a direct attack on the LGBT community, right-wing Christian lobbying group the American Family Association somehow thought it would be a good idea to use it to push their boycott of Target over a transgender-friendly bathroom policy.

The extreme group has been behind a ‘boycott’ of the store signed by over a million people.

A newsletter from the AFA says: “The nation continues to mourn over the senseless violence and loss of life in the Orlando shooting.

“This is a time when a nation must come together, reminding that God loves all people, and all are His creation, made in His own image.

“We know there are millions praying for the families and friends of the victims, and we ask all to join together with them and for those who are wounded, that a healing of both the body and the community will be reality.

“In April, Target publicised its corporate policy which allows men to frequent female restrooms and changing facilities. We view this policy as a danger to women and children because it provides a possible gateway for sexual predators to gain access to their victims.

“Since Target announced this dangerous policy in late April over 1.3 million people have signed the boycott Target pledge. This doesn’t include the millions of Americans who didn’t sign the pledge but feel the same way about Target.”

The group continues: “This week we are announcing a new initiative to the #BoycottTarget pledge called Target Isn’t Listening.

“This initiative seeks to add 50,000 potential Target shoppers to our boycott Target pledge this week, June 13-17.

“While we are grateful for the over a million that have pledged to boycott Target, we know there are millions more that have the same sympathy but haven’t signed the pledge.”

The AFA is no stranger to anti-LGBT rhetoric – with resident radio host Bryan Fischer blaming gay people for the Holocaust and claiming that freedom of religion only applies to Christians.

The activist, who has previously called for homosexuality to be re-criminalised, insists that “Hitler himself was an active homosexual” and gays were “at the heart” of the Nazi party.

He insists: “Hitler recruited around him homosexuals to make up his Stormtroopers, they were his enforcers, they were his thugs.

“Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual soldiers basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after. So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Browshirts, were male homosexuals.”