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Tony Perkins’ Pro-Bullying Campaign: ‘It Gets Better’ Videos ‘Recruit’ Kids Into Homosexual ‘Lifestyle’

The Southern Poverty Law Center designated the Family Research Council a hate group for its anti-gay rhetoric, and its latest fundraising mailer is chock full of it. Kyle Mantyla at PFAW’s Right Wing Watch shared the mailer he received, which attacks the Obama administration for participating in the “It Gets Better” anti-bullying campaign. In just a few short paragraphs, FRC president Tony Perkins refers to LGBT identities as “perversion,” “immoral,” and a “disgusting” “lifestyle” to “recruit” kids into (bolding is Perkins’):

The videos are titled “It Gets Better.” They are aimed at persuading kids that although they’ll face struggles and perhaps bullying for “coming out” as homosexual (or transgendered or some other perversion), life will get better. […]

Can you imagine George Washington, Ronald Reagan, or any other president telling school children that it’s okay to be immoral and that they’ll eventually feel better about it?

It’s disgusting. And it’s part of a concerted effort to persuade kids that homosexuality is okay and actually to recruit them into that “lifestyle.”

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While Perkins’ remarks are largely offensive, his outright claim that kids can be “recruited” into homosexuality is particularly disturbing. It is the same rhetoric that was used to support the Briggs Initiative in 1978 to suggest that gays are predatory. That groups like FRC are reverting back to these fear-baiting tactics reflects a clear escalation in pro-bullying anti-gay rhetoric among the religious right. FRC’s fellow hate group, MassResistance, regularly attacks the “It Gets Better” campaign, going so far as to send the message “It DOESN’T Get Better.” That is the “pro-family” message sent to young people by these tactics.