I´m so sick of the inflammatory lies of the Family Research Council. Right now their crusade is against gays, making up lies that conflict with the American Psychiatric Association (see my homophobia essay for details) but they´ve had racist ties in the past. Here´s the source of this article:
Chasing Evil. When I have time, I will write my own essay about his deplorable organization.
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Saturday, April 25, 2009
Tony Perkins and Family Research Council
Tony Perkins
NOTE: This person or group fits the recently issued Department of Homeland Security’s definition of “right wing extremist”, found at http://www.chasingevil.org/2009/04/dhs-defines-right-wing-extremism.html , such individuals and groups are classified by DHS as dangerous to the security of the USA.
Anthony Richard "Tony" Perkins (born March 20, 1963) is an American political activist. Perkins is president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian think-tank and public policy foundation.
Perkins has urged Congress to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment which would ban same-sex marriage throughout the United States. He has also criticized civil unions. [2] In Perkins' own words, from a July 21, 2006, column in the publication Human Events:
"The definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is rooted in the order of nature itself. It promotes the continuation of the human race and the cooperation of a mother and a father in raising the children they produce.
"This union can only be protected through amending the U.S. Constitution. If it's not, activists will continue using the courts to sell a five-legged dog. But as we say where I'm from in Louisiana, 'that dog won't hunt.'" Perkins is generally considered as a severe homophobe. Mailings from Perkins contain deliberate disinformation and distortions claiming that various legislation and court decisions about same-sex unions or civil rights for homosexuals mean “the end of America as we know it.” Perkins usual strategy is known as “the sky is falling”, in his attempt to stoke fear and anger in Americans. This is a form of racism.
Advocates for violence against gays
http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/petition-exposes-family-research-councils-support-for-antigay-violence/
Felony violence against gay people should be a protected form of expression if it is committed by pastors, according to the text of a fund-raising e-mail dated Friday from the Family Research Council. In the message, FRC President Tony Perkins; who in 1996 paid Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke $82,500 for his mailing list
Connection to White Supremacists
In 2001, Perkins addressed the Council of Conservative Citizens (successor organization to the anti-integration White Citizens Council) - a known racist group with an agenda of white supremacy. Perkins refuses to answer questions about his affiliation with this White Supremacist organization. More on CCC at http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/CCCitizens.asp?xpicked=3&item=12
Additionally, The Nation claims that in 1996, Perkins paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,000 for use of his mailing list. At the time, Perkins was campaign manager for Louis E. "Woody" Jenkins, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Louisiana. The Federal Election Commission fined the Jenkins campaign $3,000 for attempting to hide the money paid to Duke.[4] The Family Research Council says Blumenthal's claims about Perkins' connection to David Duke are false; FRC adds that Duke's "connection was not known to Mr. Perkins until 1999. Mr. Perkins claims to oppose the racial views of Mr. Duke and expresses grief to learn that Duke was a party to the company that had done work for the 1996 campaign."[5]
Of course, if Perkins had been unaware of Duke’s connection to this list, then why did they try to hide the money paid to David Duke?
FRC Positions
Some of FRC’s positions - from their website - and their irrationality. FRC claim first, then refutation in parenthesis:
Favors strong military action against "radical Islam". (Perkins advocates going to war with and “nuking” Islamic countries – even those that are our allies - that do not harbor terrorists and that have not attacked us, they just hold opinions that he sees as “radical.”)
Opposes the idea that humans are responsible for global warming.[10]
( See 224 footnotes from every major scientific organization worldwide proving global warming.)
Supports an increase in abstinence-only sex education. (see report on the failure of abstinence only sex ed.)
Opposes the vaccination of children for human papilloma virus (HPV), a virus that causes cervical cancer, and adamantly opposes promoting the vaccine is an effort to make it mandatory for school attendance. (See “The Quack Files”)
Opposes research which involves the destruction of human embryos. Rather, it advocates research using adult stem cells to treat a host of diseases/disorders. Why? Because adult stem cell therapies are the only ones with documented success. (However, research does indeed show success in using embryonic stem cells.)
Opposes any protection of or benefits to same-sex couples. Opposes the Bill of Rights’ guarantee of Equal Protection. (specific refutation not needed, only common sense.)
The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council as extremists.
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=871
Family Research Council
WASHINGTON, D.C.
www.frc.org
In 1988, James Dobson's Focus on the Family mega-ministry merged with the Family Research Council (FRC), a tiny Washington think tank headed by Gary Bauer, a former Department of Education official. With Focus' millions behind it, FRC's profile shot up as Bauer brought Dobson's anti-gay, anti-abortion and anti-sex education messages to leaders on Capitol Hill.
When FRC's lobbying threatened Focus' tax-exempt status in 1992, the groups severed their legal ties. But by then, FRC had become a powerful group in its own right.
During the gays-in-the-military debate of 1993, Bauer wrote an influential op-ed alleging that gay people's "notion of 'civil rights' would mean a jackboot on the back of the 99 percent of society that still follows the norms of nature."
Robert Knight, FRC's chief anti-gay researcher during the 1990s (see also Concerned Women for America), claimed that the gay rights movement's main goal was "going after the kids."
Drawing liberally on the discredited research of Paul Cameron (see Family Research Institute), Knight published papers claiming, among other things, that gay people view "pedophiles as the 'prophets' of a new sexual order." FRC also cited Cameron's bogus claim that children in gay households are at greater risk of sexual involvement with a parent. In a legal brief, it even warned that schools offering diversity education could be sued for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
The FRC led boycotts and protests when major corporations began to give domestic-partner benefits; in 1997, Knight lambasted American Airlines for its "immoral" benefits program, asking, "What are you going to develop next? A pedophilia market?"
Former Louisiana legislator Tony Perkins, a "family values" crusader who had given a speech to the white-supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens on May 19, 2001, took over the FRC's leadership in 2003. By then, the FRC was well established in Washington, with board members like Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, an OB/GYN who in his 2004 campaign falsely claimed that guards had to be posted inside some public school restrooms to protect girls from lesbian sex attacks.
The FRC's current senior fellow for cultural studies, Timothy Dailey, has taken over Knight's role as FRC's main anti-gay propagandist, comparing gays to "abnormal cells," co-authoring Getting It Straight, a "statistical" compendium of the "evils" of homosexuality, and penning Dark Obsession: The Tragedy and Threat of the Homosexual Lifestyle, yet another lurid FRC publication.