Concerning the Recent Violence

There can be no excuse for violence in response to the words of another — period.  This part is simple and our message on this has been consistent over the years.  There is no need for extended editorials or hand-wringing, it really is a simple as that.  We stand with dozens of other LGBT groups in solidarity against the recent shooting at the Family Research Council.

Unfortunately, there will likely always be a few in our midst who are not guided by reason or who have psychological issues which lead them to act rashly in unacceptable ways.  Heaven knows the LGBT community has seen more than its share of violence perpetrated upon it.  We must all do our best to see the signs ahead of time and, when possible, prevent these actions.

None of this should prevent accurately recognizing when a person or group decides to leave the bounds of truth and fact in order to denigrate and marginalize an entire class of people.  On the contrary, to ignore such injustice only feeds into the atmosphere of helplessness which breeds more violent acts.  We must be honest, without unnecessarily fanning those flames.  To that end, we offer the following record of comments with no commentary whatsoever.

Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center listed as an anti-gay hate group in 2010:

• Says about gay people: “They are intolerant. They are hateful. They are vile. They are spiteful…pawns of the enemy.” (See 0:43 mark.)
• Says many gays have an “emptiness within them” (:55) because they are “operating outside of nature” (1:09)
• Says that gay young people “have a higher propensity to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict; homosexuals may recognize intuitively that their same-sex attractions are abnormal.”
• Despite what health experts have said, insists that pedophilia is “a homosexual problem.”
• The Family Research Council has distributed a pamphlet that erroneously depicts gay men and lesbians as physically and mentally ill pedophiles who can be cured.
• The Family Research Council has distributed a pamphlet that begins by likening the logic behind same-sex marriage to the logic behind man-horse marriage (complete with horse graphic)
• Compares gay people to terrorists (at 0:31 mark): “[B]ack in the 80s and early 90s, I worked with the State Department in anti-terrorism and we trained about 50 different countries in defending against terrorism, and it’s, at its base, what terrorism is, it’s a strike against the general populace simply to spread fear and intimidation so that they can disrupt and destabilize the system of government. That’s what the homosexuals are doing here to the legal system.”
• “It doesn’t matter what society does, I think within the homosexual, most of them know that this behavior, it’s just not right, it’s not what we were created to do and it’s against God’s plan and it’s contrary to our nature and the way were were created.“
• “The truth is that we cannot redefine marriage without opening the door to all manner of moral and social evil.”
• Called the It Gets Better project “disgusting,” claiming it tells children “that it’s okay to be immoral” and constitutes a “concerted effort to persuade kids that homosexuality is okay and actually to recruit them into that lifestyle.“
• Paid $82,500 to use the phone bank of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke for an election run-off.
• Claims “blood of young marines” is on hands of legislators who voted to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
• Claims “people know intuitively that [homosexuality] is morally wrong“
• Says “it’s a fact” that homosexuality leads to “eternal damnation“
• Linked Secret Service prostitution scandal directly to open service: “[O]ver the weekend we saw the news of the President’s Secret Service detail in Colombia and the issue of them hiring prostitutes and now the White House is outraged about that. Actually in a meeting this morning my staff asked, ‘why should the President be upset’? It was actually legal; it was legal there to do that, so why should we be upset? Well, the fact is we intuitively know it’s wrong, there’s a moral law against that. The same is true for what the President has done to the military enforcing open homosexuality in our military. You can change the law but you can’t change the moral law that’s behind it. You can change the positive law, the law that is created by man, but you can’t change the moral law, it’s wrong. So what you have is you have a total breakdown and you can’t pick and choose. Morality is not a smorgasbord; you can’t pick what you want. I think you’re absolutely right, this is a fundamental issue going forward because if we say ‘let them do what we want,’ what’s next? You cannot maintain moral order if you are willing to allow a few things to slide.”
• Says gays and lesbians are “held captive by the enemy”
• Claims his kids couldn’t be gay because he is “teaching them the right ways that they are to interact as human beings” (3:15-3:39)
• Compared Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed ban on supersized soft drinks to the “need” to ban homosexuality: “On one hand, he’s happy to legislate people’s food choices, using the dangers of obesity as justification. On the other, he not only promotes–but forces others to embrace–a sexual behavior that carries just as many public health risks. If that isn’t hypocrisy, I don’t know what is….On the “Today” show, Bloomberg reiterated that all he wants to do is improve life expectancy. If that’s the case, then perhaps the Mayor should reconsider his endorsement of homosexuality, which, as Peter Sprigg explains, is one of the greatest public health hazards in America.”
• Equates LGBT pride with drunkedness and adultery: “The month of June is Gay Pride Month. Now, I have not yet seen where they have declared Adultery Pride Month, I have not seen where they have declared the Drunkenness Pride Month.”
• Dedicated seven minutes of a recent radio should to framing scientifically-discredited “ex-gay” therapy as “successful,” encouraging gays to “escape the homosexual lifestyle”
• Tells “funny” story about his church converting “big women” into “ex-gays”