The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins was not pleased that President Obama used his inaugural speech Monday to compare the Stonewall riots to Selma and Seneca Falls. On his radio show yesterday, Perkins poorly described Stonewall as “homosexuals… pushing back for special rights,” and went on to claim that gays never have their civil rights violated:

PERKINS: Seneca Falls was a woman’s suffrage movement, giving women the right to vote. Selma, obviously, a push to ensure that African Americans — black American in this country had full voting rights and civil rights. Stonewall, many people may not be aware of, was a move of New York of homosexuals that were pushing back for special rights. To tie all those together, there is not a single person in this country today that is gay or lesbian that are denied the rights to vote, the right to work, or doing anything else.

What they’re seeking, and it’s a little disingenuous ’cause he doesn’t say it, but it’s code what he’s saying here. He’s going to push to give them the right to redefine marriage. They have every right that you and I have today. This President has a very loaded agenda.

Listen to it:

Perkins was right that Stonewall wasn’t about voting, but it was about another fundamental right: the freedom of assembly. Back in the 1960s, the LGBT community was regularly denied service in bars, and when they did find safe places to gather (like the Stonewall Inn), the police would regularly raid those bars and load the gay patrons into paddy wagons. The riots that ensued in June of 1969 were a response to police brutality from a community who simply wanted to enjoy a drink in a space where they didn’t have to hide their identities. There is nothing “special” about such an expectation in a free society.

Just like in the response from the National Organization for Marriage, Perkins claims that gays and lesbians have equality under the law, specifically mentioning “the right to work.” Of course, as noted in the earlier post, gays and lesbians can be fired from their jobs just for being gay and lesbian in 29 states — 34 states for people who are transgender. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a bill to create national protections for LGBT employees, has floundered in Congress for decades and notably, the Family Research Council opposes it!

It seems that conservatives are attempting to arbitrarily declare equality won on behalf of LGBT people, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary. This “already treated equally” argument is designed to reserve marriage as a privilege just for heterosexual people, as well as protect the so-called “religious freedom” to flagrantly discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Perkins, Brian Brown, and the other pundits who have used this line in reaction to the President’s speech demonstrate that they have absolutely no comprehension of the discrimination, harassment, and inequality experienced by LGBT people every day, let alone compassion on their behalf.

Jeremy Hooper uncovered a sermon delivered last July by the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins. In it, he makes the most odious comparison, juxtaposing gay soldiers marching in a pride parade to the Aurora shooting and pedophiles kidnapping children:

PERKINS: I believe we see a generation rising that proclaims neither a dedication to our nation or Almighty God. I mean, just look at some of the headlines that took place this week:

The most tragic mass shooting in the history of our nation at the opening event of the latest Batman movie.

Yesterday for the first time in the history of our nation’s military, men and women in uniform marched in a gay pride parade in San Diego, California.

Children are being snatched off our streets almost daily, taken from their parents and their families by perverted individuals pursuing their own interests and desires.

I ask you this morning, “Are we a nation under God or are on the verge being a nation gone under?”

Listen to it:

Here is a picture of those servicemembers marching in the San Diego LGBT Pride Parade in uniform:

Here is an image of the 12 individuals murdered in the Aurora, Colorado shooting:

Not only does Tony Perkins believe these two incidents are equally as tragic, he preaches to others that they should feel the same way. It’s this kind of demonization of gays and lesbians that prompts the Southern Poverty Law Center to designate the Family Research Council as a hate group. Just one month after Perkins delivered this sermon, FRC was unfortunately targeted by a gunman who wounded a security guard but luckily did not kill anyone.  At that time FRC blamed the SPLC for granting a “license” for violence with its “hate group” label. Of course, when the FBI’s latest hate crime statistics showed that the number of incidents targeting a person’s sexual orientation went up even though the incidents targeting other groups went down, FRC had no comment.

For reasons that remain unclear, cable news networks continue to provide airtime to the Family Research Council, neglecting to recognize that it has been designated as a hate group for its anti-gay views, let alone the fact that it hardly represents mainstream Christianity. Today was no exception, as FRC’s Peter Sprigg was invited on CNN to join the chorus of conservative objections that Pastor Louie Giglio will no longer be participating in President Obama’s Inauguration because of his anti-gay views. Sprigg attempted to claim that Christians are the victims, but fortunately, Truth Wins Out’s Wayne Besen was there to set the record straight:

SPRIGG: The world we live in, unfortunately, is increasingly marked by the enforcement of intolerance in the name of tolerance, exclusion in the name of inclusion, and forced uniformity in the name of diversity. It’s contradictory, it’s downright Orwellian, and yet people actually make these statements, unbelievably, with a straight face. [...]

BESEN: Peter, I find it ironic that you’re embracing diversity. I mean you called for the imprisonment of gay people and said we should export homosexuals out of the United States and suddenly you’re for tolerance? I’m a little confused here.

SPRIGG: [silent laughter] Well this is about Pastor Giglio and President Obama, it’s not about me.

Watch it:

Jeremy Hooper is right to celebrate this as a victory for GLAAD’s Commentator Accountability Project, which seeks to expose the anti-LGBT records of conservative spokespeople whose positions are typically not given proper context by the news outlets that interview them. Sprigg’s presence on CNN is the quintessential example of this whitewashing, because as Besen pointed out, his positions are seemingly even more anti-LGBT than Pastor Giglio’s. Sprigg has proven time and time again that he does not even have the most basic understanding of sexuality but does have a significant antipathy toward the very existence of gays and lesbians. He has no authority to speak about LGBT issues, and CNN should learn from this interview not to provide a pedestal for his bigoted point of view again.

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins has launched a new daily radio show on American Family Association radio, and Jeremy Hooper is tracking it closely. On the second episode Tuesday, Perkins addressed a listener’s question about nondiscrimination protections, asserting that the existing protections for people of faith are fine, but creating protections for LGBT people would be problematic:

PERKINS: Actually, religion is a protected class, So right now under existing law, you can’t use that as a component to discriminate against individuals. [...]

This administration — the Obama administration — wants to push the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. What is that? It sounds nice. But it is actually providing special protections to people — employment protections and benefits — based upon their sexual behavior. So let’s say an employer at a day care, an elementary school, or a church does not want to hire someone who is openly engaged in homosexual behavior. They would be forced to either defend themselves in their decision or could suffer legal consequences as a result.

Listen to it:

As Hooper points out, Perkins is peddling a significant double standard. He voices no objection to the protections his Christian faith already enjoys, yet claims that protections for LGBT people would be “special” and violate Christians so-called “religious freedom.” As conservatives do, he only referred to “homosexual behavior,” erasing gays and lesbians and framing their identities as a choice. But not only are same-sex orientations (or non-conforming gender identities, which ENDA also would protect) not chosen, but religious beliefs are. So if Perkins argument is that people should not be protected based on their lifestyle choices, by his own logic religion should not be a protected class.

Of course, Perkins motivations are not rooted in logic, but in animus against LGBT people and an expectation that one group of people enjoy a superior status in society over another.

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins never misses an opportunity to defame the LGBT community while painting conservative Christians as victims, and his latest exploit may signify a petty new low for the hate group. In his Washington Watch Daily Radio Commentary on Monday, Perkins defended the Salvation Army for being anti-gay and claimed that the LGBT community is selfish and only targets the organization because it’s Christian:

The Salvation Army does a lot for America, but don’t expect a ringing endorsement from homosexuals. Hello, I’m Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. Gay activists will be putting a little something in the red kettle this year-but it won’t be money. They’re asking people to drop in complaints instead because the Salvation Army has a biblical view of sexuality.

Despite decades of community service, activists say those kettles are pushing an anti-gay agenda. Nothing could be future from the truth says Major George Hood. You don’t have to be straight to get help from the Salvation Army, he explained. Not a single “policy, practice, or program” even asks about sexual orientation. “The very mission of the Salvation Army calls for meeting the needs of humans without discrimination.”

The truth is, homosexuals are only targeting the Salvation Army because it’s Christian. And they’d rather help their agenda than the needy. Do your part to help the Salvation Army-because far too many families are saved by their bells.

LGBT bloggers Bil Browning and John Aravosis have thoroughly cataloged the Salvation Army’s anti-gay record. Major Hood, Perkins’ ringing endorsement for LGBT-inclusion, defended the notion of discriminating against gay employees in 2001 because “it really begins to chew away at the theological fabric of who we are.” The Church has hidden its position statement on homosexuality, claiming it’s “Under Review,” but it previously believed the following:

Scripture forbids sexual intimacy between members of the same sex. The Salvation Army believes, therefore, that Christians whose sexual orientation is primary or exclusively same-sex are called upon to embrace celibacy as a way of life. There is no scriptural support for same sex unions as equal to, or as an alternative to, heterosexual marriage.

Seeking special protection to not hire gay employees and condemning gays to a life without love is hardly a good record “without discrimination.” That’s not to say the Salvation Army doesn’t accomplish good works, just like many other organizations that engage in charity but have anti-gay policies, like the Boy Scouts of America. But these are clearly groups that reinforce stigma against gay people and actively engage in discrimination, so it’s perfectly reasonable for LGBT activists to suggest supporting organizations that don’t instead. To suggest that this has anything to do with an attack on religion or an aversion to charity is a ghastly ad hominem attack against the LGBT community. It’s as absurd as suggesting that opposition to Chick-fil-A is based on hatred for fried chicken. What’s at stake is a basic level of respect for people’s lives, and it’s outlandish for Perkins to claim that groups (like his) who have none are somehow victims.

A former employee is suing the anti-gay Family Research Council for sexual harassment, citing the sexually suggestive comments of her supervisor, particularly in regards to birth control.

Moira Gaul worked as director of women’s and reproductive health for the FRC, an anti-gay hate group that claims to represent “traditional family values.” Her expertise is in abstinence-only education. But even for a woman ideologically aligned with such a socially conservative organization, the anti-woman rhetoric of her supervisor proved too much:

According to court documents first obtained and reported by journalist Evan Gahr, former FRC employee Moira Gaul, 42, filed a complaint in 2009 with the District of Columbia Human Rights Commission in which she accused her supervisor of gender discrimination. She claimed that her boss, the director of the Center for Human Life and Bioethics at the time, referred to the use of birth control pills as “whoring around,” addressed emails to her with the words “hi cutie,” pressured her to attend parties, and referred to her as a “young, attractive woman.”

“His attitude toward me and other women was rude, belittling, and at times, angry,” she wrote in the complaint.

Gaul’s supervisor’s comments are reminiscent of the assertion by Rush Limbaugh that young women’s rights activist Sandra Fluke was on birth control because she was having “so much sex.” FRC has been one of those groups most opposed to the contraception mandate requiring employers to cover contraception under the Affordable Care Act. The organization promotes abstinence-only sex education and is rabidly anti-gay.

The Huffington Post reports that the suit was originally settled back in 2009, but that it has re-emerged because Gaul and her attorney believe the FRC illegally retaliated against her for filing the original suit.

The Family Research Council has announced that it has suspended its contract with UPS, accusing the shipping company of “openly discriminating against the Boy Scouts of America (BSA).” UPS announced last month that it would no longer give charitable donations to organizations like BSA that discriminate against the LGBT community, in accordance with its own nondiscrimination policy. In a press release Tuesday, FRC argued that the Scouts’ policy is a “matter of security” to prevent child sex abuse:

The Scouts’ policy is also a matter of security. After hundreds of cases of child sex abuse plagued the organization, the Boy Scouts tried to create a membership criterion that reduces the risk to Scouts, and that protects the rights of their parents to be the first to discuss topics like sexual orientation with their children.

Tony Perkins then echoed this sentiment in his “Washington Update“:

Unfortunately, the company only reiterated its position that until the BSA puts a greater priority on the political agenda of LGBT activists than the protection of Scouts, they are not entitled to the same equality UPS claims to endorse. Apparently, the company isn’t interested in true diversity but in strong-arming anyone who disagrees with their extreme agenda — including a century-old youth development program, whose only crime is instilling character into millions of American boys. As for their longstanding policy on homosexuality, the Boy Scouts are doing what every parent would want them to: putting children’s safety first.

After UPS first announced its policy change, FRC similarly argued that BSA was just protecting Scouts from pedophilia. There is nothing to substantiate FRC’s claim that gay people are somehow more likely to engage in child abuse, and it is because it insists on such a defamatory connection anyway that the Southern Poverty Law Center designates it as a “hate group.”

BSA has yet to explain why it stands by its discriminatory policy. Records released to the Oregon Supreme Court in October show that the organization grouped innocent gay volunteers along with those accused or convicted of child abuse or other “suspected moral problems.” UPS should be commended for not caving to FRC’s boycott threat and these offensive portrayals of the gay community.

FRC envisions a military with soldiers who cry because of marriage equality.

Anti-gay conservatives continue to be outraged that two same-sex weddings took place at West Point this weekend, including one in the academy’s Cadet Chapel. Many though, are now making a false claim that the marriages somehow are a violation of federal law. Along with an image of a crying soldier, Tony Perkins argued in the Family Research Council’s Washington Update Monday that the weddings were inconsistent with the Defense of Marriage Act:

In September of last year, the Pentagon did issue a memo giving military bases the power to decide whether or not to host same-sex “weddings.” Of course, that guidance came from Jeh Johnson, general counsel for the Department of Defense–not Congress. According to Johnson, decisions about military facilities should be made on a “sexual-orientation neutral basis.” And while the “wedding” may have been consistent with Johnson’s memo, the DOD’s general counsel is no substitute for the 427 elected members of Congress who voted to define marriage as the union of a man and woman for the government’s purposes. That means it affects federal employees (which Fulton is) and federal property (where West Point resides). The President may vehemently disagree with the law–but until the Supreme Court overturns it or Congress rejects it, DOMA is still the law of the land.

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, whose life seems to be dedicated to opposing open service in the military, similarly argued that the marriages violated DOMA:

DONNELLY: Even though Congress made it very clear and it’s in the legislation that they intended the Defense of Marriage Act to be respected and honored on military bases, several times now the administration has allowed various branches of the service to disregard that. This is the most blatant example.

The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer was more direct with this tweet:

Military breaks the law, allows homosexual “wedding” at West Point. So much for honoring their oath.

All of these interpretations distort was DOMA actually says. The law has two components. The first (Section 2) says that no state shall have to recognize a same-sex marriage performed elsewhere. The second (Section 3) simply states that for any federal regulation or Act of Congress, “the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” It is an incredible stretch to interpret this language such that a same-sex wedding is somehow illegal merely because the resulting union is not recognized by the federal government. Plenty of activities are legal that are not accounted for in written law, many of which can also take place on government property. There’s no question that DOMA applies to these couples’ marriages, but it’s a very different question to try to apply it to their weddings.

What Perkins, Donnelly, Fischer, Robertson, and others really want is for the military academies to blatantly discriminate against gays and lesbians. If any graduate of the Academy is welcome to hold a wedding in the Cadet Chapel, then Brenda Sue Fulton should not be have been exempted merely because of who she was marrying.

The Family Research Council is engaging in some very interesting damage control spin this week over its present and past support of Uganda’s “Kill The Gays” bill, which may pass before the end of the year. Earlier this week, Tony Perkins applauded statements by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, but now he is trying to claim that FRC has never supported Uganda’s heightened criminal sanctions for homosexuality:

For years, the African nation has been condemned for its severe laws criminalizing homosexuality. Despite allegations to the contrary, FRC has never supported that policy–or any policy that imposes the death penalty on homosexuals. What we do oppose is the suggestion that gay and lesbian acts are universal human rights. So when Congress introduced a resolution in 2010 denouncing Uganda’s punishment for homosexuality, FRC fought–at the request of some Members–to strike the pro-homosexual “human rights” language from the final measure.

First, it’s egregious enough that Perkins boasts his group’s opposition to the human rights of gays and lesbians, which would include freedom from violence and harassment, freedom to love, and freedom to raise a family. But what’s galling is that his denial of supporting Uganda’s bill is an outright lie. Though it has been scrubbed from FRC’s website, a distinct audio and visual record still exists documenting FRC’s blatant support of the “Kill The Gays” bill, death penalty and all. Jeremy Hooper provides them both; listen to it:

To be clear, in 2010, the Family Research Council described — in Tony Perkins’ own words — Uganda’s “Kill The Gays” bill as an effort “to uphold moral conduct.” And now, Perkins has the gall to accuse groups like the Human Rights Council and Southern Poverty Law Center of “fostering a culture of hatred and violence,” as if they somehow recruited and encouraged the rogue shooter who opened fire on FRC’s offices earlier this year. Perkins’ interpretation of who is tolerant and who is violent does not reflect reality.