'It's time to dial down your demonization of those who differ with you' says one of America's most anti-LGBT voices

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09/12/2012

by Jeremy Hooper

And now, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins takes a break from his career built around stopping or taking away every single right and/or protection for LGBT people so that he can make this aggressively self-unaware claim:

Reminder of just some of what Tony Perkins has said and done about gay people, courtesy of GLAAD's Commentator Accountability Project:

- Says about gay people: “They are intolerant. They are hateful. They are vile. They are spiteful...pawns of the enemy.” (See 0:43 mark.)
- Says many gays have an "emptiness within them" (:55) because they are "operating outside of nature" (1:09)
- Says that gay young people “have a higher propensity to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict; homosexuals may recognize intuitively that their same-sex attractions are abnormal.”
- Despite what health experts have said, insists that pedophilia is “a homosexual problem.”
- The Family Research Council has distributed a pamphlet that claims gay men are more likely to molest children, and supports "reorientation therapy" for gay people
- The Family Research Council has distributed a pamphlet that begins by likening the logic behind same-sex marriage to the logic behind man-horse marriage (complete with horse graphic)
- Compares gay people to terrorists (at 0:31 mark): “[B]ack in the 80s and early 90s, I worked with the State Department in anti-terrorism and we trained about 50 different countries in defending against terrorism, and it’s, at its base, what terrorism is, it's a strike against the general populace simply to spread fear and intimidation so that they can disrupt and destabilize the system of government. That's what the homosexuals are doing here to the legal system.”
- "It doesn't matter what society does, I think within the homosexual, most of them know that this behavior, it's just not right, it's not what we were created to do and it's against God's plan and it's contrary to our nature and the way were were created."
- “The truth is that we cannot redefine marriage without opening the door to all manner of moral and social evil.”
- Called the It Gets Better project "disgusting," claiming it tells children "that it's okay to be immoral" and constitutes a "concerted effort to persuade kids that homosexuality is okay and actually to recruit them into that lifestyle."
- Paid $82,500 to use the phone bank of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke for an election run-off.
- Claims "blood of young marines" is on hands of legislators who voted to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell.
- Claims "people know intuitively that [homosexuality] is morally wrong"
- Says "it's a fact" that homosexuality leads to "eternal damnation"
- Linked Secret Service prostitution scandal directly to open service: "[O]ver the weekend we saw the news of the President’s Secret Service detail in Colombia and the issue of them hiring prostitutes and now the White House is outraged about that. Actually in a meeting this morning my staff asked, ‘why should the President be upset’? It was actually legal; it was legal there to do that, so why should we be upset? Well, the fact is we intuitively know it’s wrong, there’s a moral law against that. The same is true for what the President has done to the military enforcing open homosexuality in our military. You can change the law but you can’t change the moral law that’s behind it. You can change the positive law, the law that is created by man, but you can’t change the moral law, it’s wrong. So what you have is you have a total breakdown and you can’t pick and choose. Morality is not a smorgasbord; you can’t pick what you want. I think you’re absolutely right, this is a fundamental issue going forward because if we say ‘let them do what we want,’ what’s next? You cannot maintain moral order if you are willing to allow a few things to slide."
- Says gays and lesbians are "held captive by the enemy"
- Claims his kids couldn't be gay because he is "teaching them the right ways that they are to interact as human beings" (3:15-3:39)
- Compared Mayor Bloomberg's proposed ban on supersized soft drinks to the "need" to ban homosexuality: "On one hand, he's happy to legislate people's food choices, using the dangers of obesity as justification. On the other, he not only promotes--but forces others to embrace--a sexual behavior that carries just as many public health risks. If that isn't hypocrisy, I don't know what is....On the "Today" show, Bloomberg reiterated that all he wants to do is improve life expectancy. If that's the case, then perhaps the Mayor should reconsider his endorsement of homosexuality, which, as Peter Sprigg explains, is one of the greatest public health hazards in America."
- Equates LGBT pride with drunkedness and adultery: "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."
- Dedicated seven minutes of a recent radio should to framing scientifically-discredited "ex-gay" therapy as "successful," encouraging gays to "escape the homosexual lifestyle"
- Tells "funny" story about his church converting "big women" into "ex-gays"
- Claims Uganda bill (with death penalty attached) simply "upholds moral conduct"
- Compares the "unfortunate experience" and "lifestyle choice" of homosexuality to that of drug abuse
Tony Perkins [GLAAD CAP]