On CNN today, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins continued his anti-marriage-equality tour of cable news shows and repeated many of his often debunked claims about the dangers same-sex couples pose to religious liberty, public education, and the institution of marriage.

But when pressed by host Brooke Baldwin about real same-sex couples, he struggled to explain away his unjustifiable fears.

BALDWIN: Have you ever been to the home of a married same-sex couple?

PERKINS: I have not been to the home of a same-sex married couple, no.

BALDWIN: If you were ever to do so, and you’re sitting across from them over dinner, how would you convince them that their life together — either two men, two women — hurts straight couples? What do you tell them?

PERKINS: Well first, Brooke, we don’t make public policy based on what’s good for me and my family, or you and your family, or one couple.

BALDWIN: I’m just asking, on a personal level…

PERKINS: We’re engaged here, in a discussion about public policy and what’s best for the nation. Not annecdotes or what one couple likes.

BADLWIN: But this is issue–it is personal. It is personal as well.

PERKINS: But that’s not how we make public policy. Certainly, there are some same-sex couples that are probably great parents. But that’s not what the overwhelming amount of social science shows us.

Watch the video:

It is noteworthy that Perkins — who opposes allowing same-sex couples to adopt at all — acknowledges that some same-sex couples that are probably great parents. Advocates for LGBT equality push for adoption policies that focus on what is in the best interest of the child — only placing children in need of loving homes with qualified parents. Perkins thinks that even same-sex couples who are great parents should be legally prevented from opening their homes to children in need of a family.

Perkins, like other anti-gay activists, misleads viewers on what the “overwhelming amount of social sciences” actually shows. Several studies have shown that children benefit from having a two-parent family, compared to those raised by just one parent. But those studies have not shown that children raised by two same-sex parents are any worse off that those raised by opposite-sex couples.

Perkins is right — this is about social science. And social science makes it clear that children would be far better off in a home with two loving parents, regardless of whether they are two men, two women, or one of each.

In an advisory opinion issued last week, Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning (R) said that he believes under the state’s constitution, local governments have no authority to enact non-discrimination ordinances. This opinion came at the request of State Senator Beau McCoy, who had proposed legislation earlier this year to strip localities of that power, arguing that uniform state laws for businesses are better than piecemeal local regulations.

Omaha, the largest city in the state, recently enacted an ordinance protecting LGBT citizens from discrimination in employment and public accommodations. Lincoln, the state’s capital, says it will continue its previous plans to consider a non-discrimination ordinance — a public hearing on the measure is scheduled for this afternoon. Lincoln’s city attorney has taken a different interpretation of the state’s constitution, arguing that the city has the authority to pass the measure.

In their non-binding opinion, Bruning and his assistant attorney general write:

[I]t is our opinion that while political subdivisions may pass ordinances or other laws on the same subject matter which are not inconsistent with the state’s civil rights classifications, political subdivisions are not authorized to expand protected classes beyond the scope of the civil rights provided for in the state statute.

Their reasoning? Nebraska is generally a “Dillon Rule” state. Based on the reasoning of 19th century Iowa Chief Justice John Dillon, several states take the view that localities may only enact laws when given explicit permission from the state government. Other states, known as “Home Rule” states, let localities make any decisions not specifically prohibited by the state government. The opinion argues that, while Nebraska laws give some Home Rule authority to local governments, this falls out of their scope. Only voters, amending their city charters by referendum — or the state legislature — could grant protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

This is not the first time localities have been big-footed by their state governments, undermining attempts to protect LGBT constituents. In Virginia, for example, a Republican Attorney General used the same principles to dissuade Fairfax County’s school board from enacting a non-discrimination rule. Last year, Tennessee enacted a law stripping localities of the right to enact non-discrimination protections beyond the state’s protected catagories. And a 1992 Colorado referendum — later ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court — sought to nullify all local protections based on sexual orientation.

In Nebraska too, the question may eventually be decided by the judicial system. Omaha’s city attorney has said that Bruning’s ruling will change nothing without a court order, telling the press “If someone sues us, we’ll deal with it in court.”

Just 16 states and the District of Columbia provide legal employment protections for LGBT citizens (another 5 protect based on sexual orientation, but not gender identity or expression). That means that in most U.S. states, someone who is — or even seems to be — to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered may legally be fired or not hired purely on that basis.

In a sense McCoy is right — this is not an issue that should be dealt with by piecemeal regulations. It is time for Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to ensure that no American is fired just for being LGBT.

Despite efforts by Mitt Romney and his campaign to put to bed the controversy over their roles in the resignation — which occurred under pressure from right-wing groups — of openly gay foreign policy spokesman Richard Grenell, the flap continues.

Yesterday, the Washington Post published an op-ed by Michael Guest, an openly gay diplomat who was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Romania by Republican President George W. Bush. Guest laments in the piece that the Republican Party’s leadership allows “principles of fairness and equality” to be “hollowed out.” While he dismisses the idea that Romney himself is to blame for the way Grenell was treated, he writes:

Romney’s slowness to comment amid the noise since Grenell’s resignation raises questions about his principles, as well as the quality and depth of his leadership. That’s what should concern us most in this sad affair. We should expect Romney to go further in making clear that issues of sexual orientation will have no bearing on any personnel decisions he makes, whether in his campaign or, should he be elected, in the administration he would lead.

Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud — a group more focused on encouraging LGBT voters to back Republicans than on encouraging Republicans to back LGBT equality — echoed these criticisms. In a break from the group’s usual GOP unity message, he told the Post’s Greg Sargent on Thursday:

The Romney campaign should have spoken up publicly in defense of Rick against the attacks over the past two weeks… This was an opportunity to send an important message that Mitt Romney wants everybody to get behind him and to support his campaign. They let that opportunity pass.

Log Cabin Republican Executive Director R. Clarke Duncan and former Bush adviser Mark McKinnon have also called out the Romney campaign for not standing up for Grenell and have encouraged the apparent GOP nominee to take steps to stop employment discrimination based on sexual orientation.

In 1994, Moderate Mitt Romney promised to co-sponsor a federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act — and claimed he’d be a better advocate for gay and lesbian citizens than Sen. Ted Kennedy. But by 2007, Severe Conservative Mitt Romney etch a sketched his position and no longer saw a need for a federal employment non-discrimination law.

Now, Guest, LaSalvia, Duncan, and McKinnon are left lamenting that 2012 General Election Mitt Romney and his campaign’s cowardly handling of the Grenell situation is much more 2007 Mitt than 1994 Mitt.

When presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s openly gay foreign policy spokesman resigned under pressure from right-wing anti-gay groups, the campaign sought to minimize the perceived damage by noting that Richard Grenell had not actually started yet on the job.

When a CNN anchor asked campaign spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom about Grenell, the top aide prefaced his remarks by saying: “First let me correct you. He wasn’t two weeks on the job. He was scheduled to start on May 1.” Other Romney-friendly media, vaguely sourcing the campaign, addressed Grenell’s departure the same way, implying that he left the job before he’d started it. When the Washington Post reported that Grenell was “kept under wraps,” Washington Examiner’s Byron York pushed back:

But Romney campaign officials say strongly that they did not keep Grenell under wraps or in any other way discourage him from taking the job. First, they point out that at the time (last week) in which Grenell was supposedly being held back, he was not yet an employee of the Romney campaign. Like a number of other new hires, officials say, Grenell was getting ready to move to Boston to begin work May 1. Romney officials fully anticipated he would begin his public role as spokesman then.

The only problem? Grenell could well have been set to officially become an employee of the Romney campaign on May 1, but he’d already started working for the team.

As Andrew Sullivan reported last night and the New York Times later confirmed, Grenell helped organize a Romney campaign conference call to pre-empt Vice President Joe Biden’s foreign policy speech last week. Sullivan reported that after Grenell’s voice was not heard on the April 26 call, which he’d helped set up, people started to ask questions:

Some even called and questioned him afterwards as to why he was absent. He wasn’t absent. He was simply muzzled. For a job where you are supposed to maintain good relations with reporters, being silenced on a key conference call on your area of expertise is pretty damaging. Especially when you helped set it up.

Sources close to Grenell say that he was specifically told by those high up in the Romney campaign to stay silent on the call, even while he was on it. And this was not the only time he had been instructed to shut up.

The Times added information to Sullivan’s story, also noting that the call was the “biggest moment yet for Mitt Romney’s foreign policy team”:

It turned out [Grenell] was at home in Los Angeles, listening in, but stone silent and seething. A few minutes earlier, a senior Romney aide had delivered an unexpected directive, according to several people involved in the call.

“Ric,” said Alex Wong, a policy aide, “the campaign has requested that you not speak on this call.” Mr. Wong added, “It’s best to lay low for now.”

It’s no wonder Grenell felt the need to resign from the campaign. The newly revealed information only bolsters his reasons: the campaign was clearly seeking to mislead the media to downplay Grenell’s departure. “It’s not that the campaign cared whether Ric Grenell was gay,” an anonymous Republican told the Times. “They believed this was a nonissue. But they didn’t want to confront the religious right.” If Romney campaign can’t stand up to a bigoted special interest on personnel issues — for what they clearly thought was the best man for the job — how could a Romney administration be expected to make the politically tough decisions needed to successfully govern the country?