Tony Perkins, president of the
Christian conservative group Family Research Council (FRC), said on
Wednesday that gay marriage will lead to a surge in prison
population.
Perkins, a vocal opponent of LGBT
rights, was asked by a caller on his Washington Watch radio
program why the government doesn't just get out of the marriage
business.
Perkins answered that the government
plays a critical role in fostering the wellbeing of children and
warned that the Supreme Court's recent ruling striking down gay
marriage bans in all 50 states will “exacerbate” societal
problems such as mass incarceration.
“Government has a vested interested
in seeing those children grow up with a mother and a father,”
Perkins
told his listeners. “Now they've changed that policy,
obviously, with this and we’re going to suffer the social
consequences as a result.”
“When you look at, for instance, our
prison system today, and there’s a lot of effort, some of which I’m
involved in, prison reform to try to scale back the prison population
which is getting out of control. But 70 percent of most of the men
in the prison have had little or no interaction with a father in
their life. That’s why you saw about a decade and a half ago
fatherhood initiatives. There is a direct correlation between
increased social costs and the breakup of the family and this will
only exacerbate that situation and take us further down this path,”
he added.
Elsewhere on the program, Perkins
claimed that since the justices “ignored the constitution” when
they “trampled marriage and our First Amendment freedom of
religion” the high court will soon go after the freedom of speech
and gun rights.