Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is a not-infrequent guest on MSNBC.
The office of the right wing conservative group Family Research Council was the site of horrifying
act of domestic terrorism on Wednesday. A man entered their Washington DC office, and when confronted by a security guard shot him. It does appear that the attack was politically motivated. The guard survived, the suspect was apprehended at the scene and has since been arraigned.
Within hours over 40 LGBT organizations signed a joint statement saying "we utterly reject and condemn such violence" and expressing their sympathy with the victim and wishes for a speedy recovery.
The Family Research Council, unfortunately, has wasted no time exploiting the tragedy to score political points. At a press conference on Thursday FRC President Tony Perkins blamed the Southern Poverty Law Center for added his group to their list of hate groups, saying it was tantamount to "a license to shoot."
[The gunman] Corkins was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations as 'hate groups' because they disagree them on public policy.''
FRC and its defenders have been using innocuous sounding euphemisms, like "disagree on public policy," to disguise the extent of their extremism, which includes not only opposition to marriage, but virtually any LGBT intiative, including "Don't ask, don't tell repeal and the desire recriminalilzing homosexual conduct. Perkins even
praised the infamous Ugandan "Kill the Gays" bill and lobbied members of the US Congress against voting for a resolution of condemnation.
Now, Perkins is expanding the cuplability to include the Obama administration. Speaking with Rick Santorum on a right-wing radio show today, Perkins took his political opportunism to extreme new depths saying the incident is "clearly linked to that same atmosphere of hostility that’s created by the public policies of an administration that’s indifferent or hostile to religious freedom."
Right Wing Watch has audio, here is the transcript:
Perkins: What I would call an attack on religious freedom is trickling down in our country. It’s not just isolated to the administration but it’s as if the President and his administration’s indifference towards religious freedom has really created an open season all across this country. In fact next week down in Tampa as the Republican National Committee begins its work on its platform we’ll be working with Liberty Institute and we’ll be releasing a study that shows this increased hostility towards religious freedom in this country and I believe Rick in large part it’s driven in large part by the policies of this administration.
Santorum: When you look at what happened with the whole Chick-fil-A incident and across the country you see government officials, mayors of large cities, wanting to use the power of the government to force, to drive out Dan Cathy and the folks at Chick-fil-A from their cities. This is really unprecedented and you’re right it creates an atmosphere that when the government now is saying you folks are so evil that we can deny you access to participate in business within our city it leads to a lot of things that are going to not just constrict religious liberty but I think threaten a lot of other areas of our lives.
Perkins: Well I think as we witnessed this past week at the Family Research Council, clearly linked to that same atmosphere of hostility that’s created by the public policies of an administration that’s indifferent or hostile to religious freedom and groups like as I mentioned the Southern Poverty Law Center that recklessly throws around labels giving people like this gunman who came into our building a license to take innocent life.
Of course, this incident fits perfectly with Perkins' and other conservative Christian's repeated assertions that "religious liberty" is under attack in America. Even
Mitt Romney is currently running an ad accusing Obama of waging war on "religious freedom."
Isn't it funny how the entire "left" is indicted in an incident like this?
But incidents like the Oklahoma City bombing, Gabrielle Giffords shooting and the Sikh Temple shooting? These are never the fault of anyone but a single crazed maniac, and it's very uncouth for anyone might suggest otherwise. The right won't hear of it that such incidents may result from anti-government talk, "Second Amendment remedies" or the relentless xenophobic demagoguery that comes specifically from one corner of the political spectrum.
The Family Research Council has made a lucrative business of spreading vicious lies like this:
“One of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets' of a new sexual order.”-1999 FRC pamphlet, Homosexual Activists Work to Normalize Sex with Boys.
Yet, they would never even pause to reflect if they are at all culpable for the 1,528 gay, lesbian and transgender Americans that were beaten, even killed in hate crimes as
reported by the FBI for 2010. Nor do they consider the countless LGBT kids who endure bullying, or even kill themselves to escape it.
And yet, on this? Perkins is very quick to point the finger all the way up to the Oval Office. He is really some piece of work.