Justin's Political Corner
With Republican Party leaders pushing a plan for the GOP to broaden its appeal by softening its stance on social issues, a group of leading social conservatives sent a letter to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus promising an exodus from the party if it stops opposing gay marriage.
But in the letter, the signatories — who included Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, and Focus on the Family’s James Dobson — also expressed indignation that anyone would suggest they haven’t been nice to gays — or “homosexuals,” as they say.
“We deeply resent the insinuation that we have treated homosexuals unkindly personally,” they wrote.
So, of course, we had to dig through the archives to find some of the uniquely kind things these conservative activists have said about gays and lesbians over the years.
Schlafly, who has a gay son, may believe she’s kind to homosexuals, but she doesn’t respect them. She made that clear in a 2010 interview where she outlined her opposition to gay marriage, something Schlafly and many of the others who signed the letter to Priebus have fought tooth and nail.
step further. Not only does he not respect gays, he doesn’t want them to respect themselves. Wildmon made this clear in a 2010 statement criticizing a Gay Pride parade that had a 10-year-old grand marshal.
“There is nothing about homosexual conduct to be proud of, and much to be ashamed of,” said Wildmon.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who also signed the letter, is also not a fan of Gay Pride celebrations. He made this clear in a 2012 broadcast on the AFA’s radio network in which he implied being gay is similar to being an alcoholic or unfaithful to one’s spouse.
“The month of June is Gay Pride Month. Now, I have not yet seen where they have declared Adultery Pride Month, I have not seen where they have declared the Drunkenness Pride Month,” Perkins said. “Whether it’s adultery, whether it’s any type of sexual immorality it’s a problem, but we’re not celebrating those other forms as a society, we’re not promoting it and teaching it as normal in our schools.”
How kind!
The signatories of the letter have also blamed gays and lesbians for all sorts of societal ills. An2012 “action alert” from the AFA said gays are damaging to your health.
“Homosexuality is a poor and dangerous choice, and has been proven to lead to a litany of health hazards to not only the individuals but also society as a whole,” the alert said.
Another AFA radio personality who signed the letter, Sandy Rios, used her time on the organization’s airwaves to blame gays and lesbians for all sorts of societal ills. In February 2012, she said gay friendly school programs were responsible for falling test scores.
“Whether they are teaching radical environmentalism or homosexuality. Can you imagine that they are teaching this instead of math and science? … That’s the reason our test scores are so shockingly low compared with the world.”
Just under nine months later, Rios upped the ante.
“They are clamoring for gay marriage,” said Rios of LGBT activists. “Of course it isn’t just gay marriage, it’s instruction, explicit instruction in public schools, it’s really I think the rape of our children’s innocence.”
Dobson, ever so kindly and politely, of course, managed to accuse LGBT activists of causing something even more dramatic than raping young minds — the total destruction of our world.
“Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage, Dobson said at a 2004 rally in Oklahoma. “It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth.”
The signatories have also accused gays and lesbians of wanting to attack American values. InMarch of this year, Wildmon said gay marriage could have a disastrous effect on the founding fathers’ vision for this country.
“Condoning sexual immorality and same-sex marriage may be a good way to make political friends, but it is diametrically opposed to the Word of God. The American Family Association is concerned more about the future of America and how moving away from God’s purpose and intent for marriage destroys the foundations of our Republic.”
Another signatory, Reverend Louis P. Sheldon, authored a book on the “homosexual plan to change America” in 2005 that described the gay “deathstyle” as being driven by angry, unpatriotic individuals.
Perhaps the kindest words of all came from Bauer in 1999 after the Vermont Supreme Court ruled gay couples should have the same legal protections afforded to married couples.
“I think what the Vermont Supreme Court did last week was in some ways worse than terrorism,” Bauer said.
It looks like Family Research Council president Tony Perkins is embracing a conspiracy theory first floated by Buster Wilson of the American Family Association about how the Obama administration may begin preventing conservative Christians from purchasing guns.
Yesterday on Washington Watch, Perkins said he opposes a new Senate bill that expands background checks because such a system may prevent anyone identified as an “evangelical, bible-believing fundamentalist” from acquiring a firearm.
H/T: Right Wing Watch
Back2Stonewall.com has gotten its hands on the piece of anti-gay propaganda on same sex marriage being sent around the country by Peter Sprigg of the GOP backed hate group the Family Research Council warning citizens against same-sex marriage.
Lies include: Taxpayers would be forced to subsidize homosexual relationships. Birth rates would fall, Demands for legalization of polygamy would grow.
And the ever popular. Fewer children would be raised by a married mother and father.
This particular “memo” was sent out by the FRC to Cincinnati’s Citizens for Community Values an umbrella group of the FRC and “proud affiliate” of the American Family Association.
Total lies, garbage, bullshit and hate.
Be a homophobic bigot for the children.
Family Reseach Council’s Anti-Gay Propaganda EXPOSED! - Top Ten Harms of Same Sex Marriage
h/t: Back2Stonewall.com
The Family Research Council has caught wind of a new theory percolating in the right-wing blogosphere and in certain circles on Capitol Hill: that the Department of Health and Human Services is using a new Obamacare rule to empower the long-defunct ACORN to commit voter intimidation and fraud.
The new rule in question is HHS’s solution to the problem of signing up 30 million uninsured Americans on the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges. Under the rule, HHS will recruit “navigators” to walk uninsured people through the process of finding an insurance policy on their state’s exchange. According to the Washington Post, “Groups such as unions, chambers of commerce, health clinics, immigrant-service organizations, and community- or consumer-focused nonprofits can use the grants to train and employ staff members or volunteers to provide in-person guidance — especially to hard-to-reach populations — and to provide space for them to work.”
Boustany’s fears were then picked up by Breitbart.com, which announced this week, “HHS resurrects ‘ACORN’ through Obamacare.”
Yesterday, the Family Research Council picked up this story and ran with it in its daily email, warning that an “army of ACORN, Planned Parenthood, and union activists” will use their roles as insurance navigators to “influence people’s party affiliation.” The email adds: “With this administration, it isn’t a question of whether they would abuse their power—but when!”
The rule, which is available for public comment for the next few weeks, also includes a “voter registration provision,” leading many—including Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.)—to question how this army of ACORN, Planned Parenthood, and union activists would twist their access to influence people’s party affiliation. With this administration, it isn’t a question of whether they would abuse their power—but when!
ACORN, of course, disbanded in 2010 after a right-wing smear campaign accused it of large-scale voter fraud – accusations that turned out to be completely false. But that hasn’t stopped 49 percent of Republican voters from believing that ACORN stole the 2012 election for President Obama – an illusion gleefully perpetuated by groups like the FRC.
h/t: Miranda Blue at RWW
If the Family Research Council gets its way, evangelical Christians all across America will hear their pastor deliver a sermon written by an FRC official condemning homosexuality and the advance of marriage equality this weekend or next. On March 26 and 27 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in cases involving California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and this week FRC emailed pastors urging them to hold a “Stand for Marriage Sunday” before then, providing links to a sermon and full-color bulletin insert recapping its main points.
The 4300-word suggested sermon and accompanying power point presentation start with the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton and march through every Religious Right talking point on homosexuality, marriage equality, and the Satanic, anti-Christian, Nazi-like gay rights movement that is inviting the downfall of civilization. Here are the section heads and some highlights:
Section 1: The Divine Pattern
The sermon says God created men and women to complete each other, and actually includes, “Aren’t you glad God created Adam and Eve, and not just Adam and Steve?” It quotes James Dobson saying “More than ten thousand studies have concluded that kids do best when they are raised by mothers and fathers.” And it asserts that in both the Old and New Testaments, “one man and one woman in a marriage covenant relationship for life is the divine pattern.” (The sermon does not address the abundant inconvenient exceptions to one-man, one-woman marriage in the Bible.)
After reviewing all the ways marriage makes people, couples, and children happier, the section concludes:
God’s way works! Think about it. Every civilization in history is built upon the institution of marriage. It is the foundation. The happiness of couples, the welfare of children, the propagation of the faith, the wellbeing of society, and the orderliness of civilization are all dependent upon the stability of marriage according to the divine pattern. When this God-given pattern is undermined, the whole superstructure of society becomes unstable. Any deviation from the divine pattern invites disaster.
Section 2: The Deceptive Perversion
According to the sermon, homosexuality is a deceptive perversion, a sin that is “open rebellion against the divine pattern.” It cites the familiar “abomination” verses and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Section 3: The Definitive Problem
This section compares gay-rights advocates’ claims that people are born Gay or that “God made us gay” to Nazi propaganda. “They essentially practice Joseph Goebel’s Nazi philosophy of propaganda, which is basically this: Tell a lie long enough and loud enough and eventually most mindless Americans will believe it.” The sermon also compares homosexuality to other “sexual sins” such as promiscuity, adultery and pedophilia. “I do not believe,” it says, “that God would not place in your genetic code something that would damn your immortal soul.” [sic on the double negative]
Section 4: The Destructive Program
This section recounts the dangers of the “radical homosexual agenda,” its goal of “silencing critics in the clergy and Christian media,” and its conquest of the entertainment, educational, and legal arenas, citing a litany of familiar Religious Right horror stories about the alleged persecution of Christians who stand against the merciless gay rights steamroller. And it pushes one of the primary talking points of Religious Right leaders and their conservative Catholic allies: that equality and religious liberty are fundamentally incompatible:
Where homosexual activists win legal approval, whether by court action or legislation, they often deny our full rights as Christians because a homosexual’s so-called “civil rights” and a Christian’s freedom of conscience and speech opposing homosexuality are mutually exclusive.
“Listen,” the sermon warns, “homosexual activists won’t stop at recognition, their aim is domination. They will not stop until they win over our children and our convicting voice is silenced.”
Section 5: The Determined Plan
These are the action steps FRC wants people hearing the sermon to take:
Action Step 1: Pray
The sermon calls on people to pray for spiritual revival and for “God’s mercy on a nation that is speeding toward Sodom, and hurtling toward Gomorrah.”
Action Step 2: Practice
This section says Christians give up their credibility to challenge the culture when their divorce rate is the same as everyone else’s, and urges people to follow biblical instructions on marriage and home life.
Action Step 3: Participate
This section is a direct rebuke to people who think politics are of the world, something Christians should stay out of. “Since God created the institution of government, would He want His people to stay out of it? No. If Christians don’t ‘render to Caesar’ (Matt. 22:21) and don’t function as ‘salt’ and ‘light’ (Matt. 5:13-16) in the arena of government, then we disobey the commands of Christ and allow Satan to prevail by default.” The sermon urges people to write blog posts, use Facebook and Twitter, comment on news stories, knock on doors, contact elected officials, and join the March for Marriage being organized by the National Organization for Marriage and its allies in Washington DC on March 26.
Action Step 4: Proclaim
This section urges people to tell those in the “homosexual lifestyle” that they do not have to remain “slaves to sin” but can pray away the gay.
Let’s stand along these poor misguided and lost people trapped in Satan’s snare. Let’s love them out of that sinful and destructive lifestyle! … But let’s also exercise our rights as Christian citizens! Listen, we can make the difference. Together, Christians all across America can protect and preserve marriage for our children and our children’s children. Let’s stand for God’s plan for marriage because our future depends on it. And all of God’s people said: Amen!
H/T: Right Wing Watch
Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL) appeared on Washington Watch yesterday with Family Research Council Tony Perkins to discuss his legislation that “would spend $110 million a year for the next five years on grants to abstinence programs around the country,” funding that would have otherwise gone towards comprehensive sexual education. He claimed that while the Obama administration backs “very dangerous and experimental education programs,” programs pushing abstinence-only-until-marriage curriculum have “incredible success records.”
Far from having “incredible success records,” abstinence programs have a history of failure. Reports have consistently found that there is no evidence to support the claim that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs reduce premarital sex or teen pregnancy; on the other hand, studies show that comprehensive sex-ed decreases the rate of teen pregnancy and STDs.
h/t: Right Wing Watch
Oy vey! Dana Loesch, a vicious far-right hatemonger and sociopath, is making up false accusations about the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is a highly reputable organization. The reason for this is that the SPLC truthfully wrote about the increasingly disturbing influence of radical right anti-government “Patriot” groups.
SPLC, on the reasons why the far-right “Patriot” movement is growing:The number of conspiracy-minded antigovernment “Patriot” groups on the American radical right reached an all-time high in 2012, the fourth consecutive year of powerful growth by a movement that is becoming increasingly militant as President Obama enters his second term and Congress debates gun control measures, according to a reportissued today by the SPLC.Loesch, on the other hand, used it to attack the SPLC and even falsely attacked them for allegedly aiding and abetting Floyd Lee Corkins II’s role in the Family Research Council shooting.
DanaLoeschRadio.com:Around seven months ago Floyd Lee Corkins II entered the Family Research Council headquarters and opened fire. Corkins told the FBI that he was inspired by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate lists published online. The SPLC designates groups with which it disagrees as “hate groups.” Despite having served as the inspiration for one tragedy, the SPLC is once again pushing its ironic “hate lists” in the spring issue of their publication.
The same individuals who perpetuated this association were silent when it was discovered that the Southern Poverty Law Center’s smear lists did inspire the criminal behind the FRC shooting. There have been no calls for the SPLC to cease publishing it’s hateful lists or even pull the past lists which inspired Corkins. Are we to expect more tragedies based on the SPLC “hate lists?” Will SPLC even apologize for pushing hyper-inaccurate which have already endangered the lives of one group’s members?
No, Dana, the SPLC and their hate group listings did NOT inspire the criminal behind the FRC shooting. They did condemn the FRC shooting incident.
While the Supreme Court prepares to take up cases on marriage equality, the Family Research Council’s latest mailing [PDF] takes on ENDA – the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act. “Like a B-grade 1950’s horror-movie, ENDA is coming back from the dead,” warns FRC President Tony Perkins. Perkins says President Obama is working with the “totalitarian homosexual lobby” to sneak ENDA into law, and if that happens, “Our freedom of religious will be destroyed.” The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer sounded a similar alarm in January.
“In fact,” says Perkins in his new letter, “under ENDA biblical morality becomes illegal.”
What ENDA would really do is simply extend existing protections against various forms of legal discrimination in the workplace to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
Polls show overwhelming public support for protecting gay and transgender people from discrimination on the job. But that doesn’t matter to FRC, which has a lot invested in convincing its supporters that LGBT equality is incompatible with religious freedom.
Several years ago, FRC warned that a federal hate crimes law would be used to silence preachers. Other religious right leaders said Christians would be tossed into jail for preaching against homosexuality. That legislation was signed into law in 2009; as Perkins himself makes clear, the freedom to trash-talk LGBT people has survived.
- H/T: Peter Montgomery at RWW
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, made an interesting observation on his radio show yesterday. Speaking about the confirmation of Chuck Hagel, Perkins mused about the ‘irony’ that Hagel, whom he considers to be anti-Israel, was backed by Democratic senators who are “mostly aligned with a lot of the Jewish lobby” and “enjoy the money coming from the Jewish community.” Hmmm, “Jewish lobby,” where have I heard that before?
Hagel has been savaged in recent weeks for having used the phrase in a 2006 interview. He has since apologized and said he should phrased his comments differently. In case it isn’t obvious, the ADL’s Abe Foxman explains the many problems with saying “Jewish lobby.”
Notwithstanding Hagel’s apology, Sen. Lindsey Graham grilled him about his use of the phrase during his confirmation hearing. FRC also cited Hagel’s use of “Jewish lobby” in its background document opposing his confirmation. Meanwhile over at the website of the American Family Association, which broadcasts Perkins’ show, David Limbaugh railed against Hagel’s “bigoted accusation” about the “Jewish lobby” and said he failed to provide a “satisfactory explanation for his disgraceful terminology – because there is none.”
“Bigoted” and “disgraceful” sounds about right, but don’t hold your breath waiting for conservatives to denounce Perkins’ comments.
Perkins seems mystified as to why most American Jews support Democrats, but his right-hand man thinks he knows the reason. FRC’s Executive Vice President Jerry Boykin has argued that Hitler was “an extraordinarily off the scale leftist” but “many Jews in America, for example, can’t identify with the Republican Party because they’re called the party of the Right, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.”
This is the same Boykin who was rebuked by the ADL in 2003 and believes that the “Jews must be lead to Christ.” And this is the same FRC – a certified hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center – that warned yesterday that Hagel’s confirmation may bring God’s judgment on America. So I guess we shouldn’t be suprised.
- See more at: RWW
The Family Research Council has launched what it is describing as “an ambitious, no-holds-barred campaign to keep marriage as between one man and one woman and preserve the American family.” FRC is worried about two cases before the Supreme Court that will have “a lasting impact on the very soul of our nation” — one on California’s Prop 8 and one on the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
In a direct-mail piece dated on Valentine’s Day, FRC President Tony Perkins says it is important to get members of Congress “to pressure the Supreme Court to come down on the right side of marriage.” Recipients of the letter are encouraged to sign petitions to their representative and senators to urge them to “PRESSURE THE SUPREME COURT TO RULE IN FAVOR OF TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE!”
The text of the petition:
[Representative/Senator], as one of your constituents, I ask that you please use your influence to urge the Supreme Court to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act and state statutes banning same-sex “marriage.” The covenant marriage relationship between one man and one woman is a universally accepted social tradition that transcends all cultures and predates any religion. It is essential for procreation and the stability of society. I respectfully request that you do all in your power to urge the Court to uphold traditional marriage. Thank you for your service to our country.
The letter also recycles some of the same false claims that FRC and its allies made about federal hate crimes legislation, suggesting the advance of marriage equality will lead to the federal government dictating what pastors can preach about homosexuality or prosecuting those who preach against same-sex marriage. Perkins also claims – falsely – that the “vast majority of Americans do not want to see marriage redefined” and “the vast majority of voters are against the legitimization of same-sex ‘marriage.’” Actually, a majority of Americans supports marriage equality, according to recent polls by Gallup, Wall Street Journal/NBC, Washington Post/ABC, and CBS News.
While he certainly has a lot of competition serving among the likes of Michele Bachmann, Steve King, Louie Gohmert and Steve Stockman, Rep. Tim Huelskamp is doing his best toposition himself as the leading congressman of the anti-gay radical right.
Huelskamp told Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in an interview before last night’s State of the Union address that President Obama seeks “to destroy the family and replace it with his view of a radical new social agenda.”
This President has a radical social agenda and the media will probably give him a pass when instead of talking about the fact that mom and dad don’t have a job we’re going to talk about how to destroy the family and replace it with his view of a radical new social agenda. So we’re going to hear a lot about that, we’re going to hear a lot of blaming and also a lot of talk about how he would solve this and that problem but gosh darn it he’s had four years to do that and he hasn’t solved one and I would argue it’s gotten progressively worse since he took office.The congressman went on to criticize the Republican leadership for trying to avoid a discussion of social issues. Huelskamp, who last year falsely claimed that 85 percent of people in the U.S. don’t support legalizing same-sex marriage, insisted that Republicans “defend the seventy percent position that most Americans support traditional marriage,” which in Religious Right-speak means oppose marriage equality.
Of course, most polls find that just over half of Americans support same-sex marriage.
Huelskamp went on to call the Department of Defense’s extension of partnership benefits to same-sex couples and the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) as “radical ideas” that “most Americans do not accept” because they “specifically and selectively reward homosexual behavior.”
Once again, the majority of Americans favor job protections and partnership benefits for gays and lesbians.
H/T: Brian Tashman at RWW
Last night, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to to proceed on a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, despite strong opposition from the Religious Right. But as the legislation moves to the House, the fight is far from over. The Family Research Council has joined Religious Right activists and organizations including Phyllis Schlafly, Gary Bauer, Concerned Women For America, the Southern Baptist Convention, in opposing the reauthorization because it includes new provisions protecting LGBT people, immigrants and Native Americans. In an email alert last night, the FRC denied the positive impact of VAWA, which has contributed to a dramatic decrease in intimate partner violence, and said that the “real abuse” is VAWA’s cost to taxpayers.
h/t: Miranda Blue at RWW
Conservative leaders are continuing to rally opposition to a proposed plan to end the national ban on gay members in the Boy Scouts of America with warnings about pedophilia and “indoctrination.”
Family Research Council vice president Rob Schwarzwalder told Janet Mefferd yesterday that fathers cannot trust their sons to be around gay people.
Mefferd called gay rights advocates “totalitarian” for opposing the ban and lamented that the “violins are playing full blast” in the media when they cover stories about gay youths kicked out of the Boy Scouts.
Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel said in a statement that “people like Jerry Sandusky” would be “permitted to be Scoutmasters” if the policy changes, adding, “To allow homosexual Scoutmasters or homosexual Scouts will put young boys at risk.”
Concerned Women for America started a letter-writing campaign against the move before gays attempt “to infiltrate the next generation.” The group even claimed that if gays are allowed to join the Boy Scouts, it would mean that “our religious liberties are being taken away”…somehow.
2000 presidential candidate Alan Keyes in WorldNetDaily warned of “homosexual indoctrination” and “idolatry” in the Boy Scouts if they change the policy.
H/T: Brian Tashman at RWW
For example, American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer suggested the move would allow Jerry Sandusky-like pedophiles to become troop leaders:
Conservative talk show host Janet Mefferd followed suit.
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, which launched a boycott of UPS after the company stopped donating to the BSA for failing to meet its non-discrimination guidelines,said that the inclusion of openly gay members undermines “the well-being of the boys under their care”:
“The Boy Scouts of America board would be making a serious mistake to bow to the strong-arm tactics of LGBT activists and open the organization to homosexuality. What has changed in terms of the Boy Scouts’ concern for the well-being of the boys under their care? Or is this not about the well-being of the Scouts, but the funding for the organization?
“The Boy Scouts has for decades been a force for moral integrity and leadership in the United States. Sadly, their principled stances have marked them as a target for harassment by homosexual activists and corporations such as UPS which are working to pressure the Boy Scouts into abandoning their historic values.
“The mission of the Boy Scouts is ‘to instill values in young people’ and ‘prepare them to make ethical choices,’ and the Scout’s oath includes a pledge ‘to do my duty to God’ and keep himself ‘morally straight.’ It is entirely reasonable and not at all unusual for those passages to be interpreted as requiring abstinence from homosexual conduct.
“If the board capitulates to the bullying of homosexual activists, the Boy Scouts’ legacy of producing great leaders will become yet another casualty of moral compromise. The Boy Scouts should stand firm in their timeless values and respect the right of parents to discuss these sexual topics with their children,” concluded Perkins.In an email to members, Perkins claimed that any policy change would have “devastating” consequences:
A departure from their long-held policies would be devastating to an organization that has prided itself on the development of character in boys. In fact, according to a recent Gallup survey, only 42 percent of Americans support changing the policy to allow homosexual scout leaders.
As the BSA board meets next week, it is crucial that they hear from those who stand with them and their current policy regarding homosexuality. Please call the Boy Scouts of America at 972-580-2000 and tell them that you want to see the organization stand firm in its moral values and respect the right of parents to discuss these sexual topics with their children.The Christian Post, whose editor Richard Land leads the Southern Baptist Convention’s political arm, interviewed a top Southern Baptist who said the potential shift in policy “boggles the mind.”
A source who has knowledge of the situation told The Christian Post last week that the BSA’s top executives had met with top leaders at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, among others, over the last few weeks to inform them of the possibility of this policy shift.
…
“It boggles my mind to think the BSA would make such a move,” said an executive in the Southern Baptist Convention who asked not to be identified. “If they have counted the cost of this decision in terms of relationships and numbers, then I believe they have miscalculated that cost.”
H/T: Right Wing Watch
After years of making the rounds as a political commentator on cable news networks, anti-gay hate group leader Tony Perkins is finally using his clout to launch a national radio show.
Perkins – who heads up the notoriously anti-gay Family Research Council (FRC) – announced the start of his hour-long daily radio show on the American Family Radio network this week. According to a January 7 press release:
Washington Watch with Tony Perkins, the new daily radio show hosted by Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins launches today on the nationwide American Family Radio (AFR) network and other stations. Among the guests for the first week are Senators David Vitter and Pat Toomey and former Governor Mike Huckabee.
[…]
“We will offer a pro-family perspective on what’s happening each day in our nation’s capital, and will regularly feature many of America’s leading political and religious figures,” Perkins added.
In a perfect world, even the most conservative Republican politicos would shy away from appearing on a radio show run by the leader of a major hate group, especially given Perkins’ history of anti-LGBT commentary, including:
- Falsely claiming that gay men are more likely to molest children
- Accusing the “It Gets Better” project of trying to “recruit” kids into a “lifestyle” of “perversion”
- Stating that gay teens commit suicide because they know being gay is “abnormal”
- Comparing gay activists to terrorists and labeling them pawns of the devil
It’s not just his anti-gay rhetoric that should make Perkins a toxic figure. He also has reported ties to white supremacist groups including the Ku Klux Klan, and his group has a track record of playing nice with some of the most extreme voices on the far right.
And now that Perkins’ platform extends to 180 radio stations across forty states, those same networks will have an even easier time justifying his appearances on national television.
H/T: Equality Matters
