Last month, the Associated Press revealed that one of the cogs in Newt Gingrich’s vast network of business enterprises and front groups, ReAL Action, provided $125,000 to the American Family Association Action, an anti-gay activist organization that has been officially labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group’s outspoken policy directory Bryan Fischer has “proposed criminalizing homosexual behavior” and has even advocated forcing gays into “reparative” therapy.

This morning, ThinkProgress reminded Gingrich of his donation and asked him if he would condemn Fischer’s remarks. The former speaker of the House initially attempted to dodge the question by explaining his support for recalling judges who supported same-sex marriage in Iowa and only recanted Fisher’s extreme rhetoric after being pressed on the issue. Gingrich insisted, however, that AFA is not a hate group, but a “Christian” organization:

VOLSKY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Associated Press recently reported that one of your groups gave money to the American Family Association. This is a group that has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. They’ve said that homosexuality should be criminalized, that gays should go into reparative therapy and I was wondering if you would be willing to condemn that kind of thinking today.

GINGRICH: Well, okay. You’ve just made a whole series of assertions that I’m not going to automatically accept your description of an organization that has a million and five hundred thousand members or more…The only thing I’ve done, which I was perfectly happy to defend, is I did help raise resources for a campaign to defeat three judges in Iowa. [...]

VOLSKY: But you’re not willing to condemn the fact that homosexuality should be criminalized?

GINGRICH: I’m not in favor of criminalizing homosexuality. But you didn’t ask me about my personal opinion.

VOLSKY: I was just asking why you were funding a group that has said such statements. You’ve appeared on Bryan Fischer’s radio show, who has made all of these allegations.

GINGRICH: You bring a series of allegations that I can’t check about a group that is largely a Christian based membership group, that is fairly widespread in its membership and I suspect most of those people do not in any way think of themselves as a hate group even if that’s how you would characterize them.

Watch it:

Gingrich is slow to condemn Fisher’s rhetoric because he himself seems to agree with it. For instance, the Iowa judges campaign that Gingrich is “happy to defend” was organized by the anti-marriage equality group Iowa for Freedom — which was also being funded by AFA Action — and was run by Bob Vander Plaats, who claims that homosexuality is a “public health risk.” During a very recent appearance on Fisher’s show, Gingrich also promised to “slow down the homosexual agenda” if he were elected president and told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly in 2008 that “there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us is prepared to use violence, to use harassment.”

Moreover, the Southern Poverty Law Center notes, “[g]ays aren’t the AFA’s only enemies.” “In late 2009, Fischer suggested that all Muslims should be banned from joining the U.S. military” and has repeatedly called “for a ban on immigration by Muslims and for local communities to ban the construction of mosques.” But according to Gingrich, this kind of sentiment should not reflect poorly on “a Christian based membership group.”

Texas House Representative Wayne Christian has no problem with the teaching of “alternative sexual practices,” but thinks equal time ought to be dedicated to heterosexual “traditional values.” “If they’re going to pay for one, they need to balance it with the other,” Christian said.

He added an amendment (PDF) to the budget on Friday requiring any universities who support LGBT students to offer equal time to heterosexual students:

This amendment simply says of our universities that if they spend money to create a center for—a gender and sexual[ity] center—that they must have at least 50%—or match the dollars—in a traditional family values center. It does not require—it just says if they’re going to pay for one, they have to balance it to the other.

The amendment passed 110-24. Rep. Christian did not elaborate on what exactly such centers would offer. A staffer at his office said on the phone that heterosexual students would be able to go to the new centers to have their questions answered, as “there is no place else for them to go.”

What Rep. Christian does not seem to understand or appreciate is why LGBT centers currently exist on campuses. The LGBT Campus Climate study released last September documents the high rates of harassment experienced by LGBT college students, faculty, and staff, and the significant impact this chilly climate has on their safety, academic performance, and retention.

Currently, programs that address LGBT issues on campuses are supported by the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education, which provides standards that “respond to real-time student needs and the requirements of sound pedagogy” consistent with institutional missions. No such standards (or precedents) currently exist for “heterosexual programs” or “traditional value centers,” nor do campuses offer “White Centers” to balance “Multicultural Centers” nor “Men’s Centers” to balance “Women’s Centers.”