Tony Perkins, president of the
Christian conservative Family Research Council (FRC), is calling on
President-elect Donald Trump to “ferret out” officials at the
Department of State who support LGBT rights.
Perkins on Thursday claimed that under
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and outgoing Secretary John Kerry,
the State Department was “systematically” filled with “LGBTQ
and abortion activists.” Clinton and Kerry, Perkins wrote, worked
to “export the LGBTQ agenda globally.”
“The incoming administration needs to
make clear that these liberal policies will be reversed and the
‘activists’ within the State Department promoting them will be
ferreted out and will be replaced by conservatives who will ensure
the State Department focuses on true international human rights like
religious liberty which is under unprecedented assault,” Perkins
said.
Pointing to ExxonMobil CEO Rex
Tillerson's support for the lifting of the Boy Scouts of America's
ban on gay scouts, Perkins lamented that Trump's nominee for the post
might not have the “courage to stop the promotion of this
anti-family, anti-life agenda” at the State Department.
“It’s for this reason that I have
raised concerns about the nomination of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson
for secretary of state. I certainly don’t see Tillerson cut from
the same cloth as Clinton or Kerry, but he doesn’t have to be for
these anti-life, liberal social policies to continue. He must have
the courage to stop the promotion of this anti-family, anti-life
agenda, which is very much a question mark given that he capitulated
to activists pushing to liberalize the Boy Scouts’ policy on
homosexuality when he was at the helm of the organization,” Perkins
said.
Perkins strongly back Trump during the
election, appearing with the candidate at several venues. He also
worked on this year's Republican Party platform, which calls for the
undermining or reversal of the Supreme Court's 2015 ruling that led
to nationwide marriage equality and supports so-called conversion
therapy to minors and state laws that restrict transgender bathroom
use.