Tony Perkins, the president of the
Family Research Council (FRC), on Friday accused President Barack
Obama of enabling a shooting at the group's Washington DC
headquarters.
“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,” Perkins
said during an interview with former Republican presidential
candidate Rick Santorum on FRC's Washington
Watch Weekly radio program.
On Thursday, Perkins told reporters
that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which in 2010 labeled
the FRC a “hate group,” should be held partially accountable for
the shooting, which left one man wounded.
The
SPLC has denied the claim, saying “Perkins and his allies,
seeing an opportunity to score points, are using the attack on their
offices to pose a false equivalency between the SPLC's criticisms of
the FRC and the FRC's criticisms of LGBT people.”