President Donald Trump attacked Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton over trans issues at an Oct. 19 rally in Park City, Kansas. He accused the pastor of misusing church money and “making children transgender,” without evidence supporting those claims, ABC News reported.
Hamilton founded the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood. He’s trying to unseat Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, and Trump came to Heartland Credit Union Arena, about 10 miles north of Wichita, to help Marshall, ABC News reported.
Trump said Hamilton “used a lot of church money to fund all of this transgender crap that you’re reading about.” He also claimed Hamilton “promotes a document listing 125 different genders” and “believes in letting children and making children transgender.” He called Hamilton “a radical left phony who’s pretending to be a moderate.”
A Hamilton spokesperson, Tyson Brody, answered the next day. “Roger Marshall’s campaign is sinking, and Washington is panicking,” he told ABC News.
Church of the Resurrection’s Kansas City PrideFest Sponsorship
The church-money attack goes back to September. At a Sept. 14 rally in Olathe, Vice President JD Vance went after Resurrection for sponsoring Kansas City PrideFest. He said Hamilton backed a drag group he called “Our Ladies of Perpetual Indulgence.” Baptist News Global reported he likely meant the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a network of queer and trans volunteers. “This is an anti-Christian hate group,” Vance said, The Christian Post reported.
Two days later, Hamilton called that a “false and sad attempt to distract from the real hardships facing Kansans” in a post on X.
Bishop David Wilson, who leads the United Methodist Church’s Great Plains Conference, defended the congregation. “The heated rhetoric of political campaigns often harms others, and I have been saddened by the accusations,” Wilson said, Baptist News Global reported.
Resurrection has about 25,000 members. It has a Queer Inclusive Collective ministry and takes part in Pride events, the Associated Press reported in September. Hamilton told the AP his thinking on sexuality and same-sex marriage changed over time as he got to know gay and lesbian members of his church. He described that work as “trying to make sure that people who felt alienated from the church and pushed away knew that Christ welcomed them.” He supported the 2024 United Methodist vote allowing LGBTQ+ clergy, the AP reported.
“I’m not running for the Senate to make everybody in this country Christian or United Methodist,” he said.
What Adam Hamilton Has Said About Trans Athletes
At the candidates’ final debate on Oct. 21, Hamilton and Marshall both said there are only two genders, the Kansas News Service reported. Both backed keeping trans girls and women off female teams. Hamilton said local officials should decide those questions and accused Republicans of bullying trans people by putting the issue at the center of their campaigns, the AP reported.
Back in August, Brody told PolitiFact that Hamilton doesn’t think girls should “compete against boys.” He added: “But no one should attack or demean a small and vulnerable group of people just to score political points.” PolitiFact also found that a Republican ad stitched separate sentences from a 2021 podcast into a Hamilton quote he never said.
Trans-Themed Ad Spending in the Marshall-Hamilton Race
Republicans have spent nearly $7 million on about 7,000 trans-themed TV airings in the Kansas Senate race, according to AdImpact data cited by the AP.
Kansas hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. At the rally, Marshall called Hamilton the “most radical liberal Democrat” ever to win a Kansas Senate primary.
Election Day is Nov. 3.
Related: Josh Turek’s response to attacks over gender-affirming care in Iowa
