Tony Perkins, the president of the
Christina conservative group Family Research Council (FRC), has
denied he hates gay people.
In an appearance on Fox &
Friends, Perkins defended his group against claims by the
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) calling the FRC a hate group.
The SPLC recently added the FRC, a
group that opposes gay rights, to the same list of hate groups as the
Ku Klux Klan, the Nation of Islam and the Aryan Nations. Also
added were the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the
nation's most vociferous opponent of gay marriage, and the
Christian conservative group American Family Association (AFA), which
claims that “homosexuals controlled the Nazi Party and helped
orchestrate the Holocaust.”
Perkins told host Steve Doocy: “What
this boils down to Steve it that the left is losing the debate over
public policy and the direction of this nation, as is evidenced in
the election last month. So what they want to do is shut down all
debate over issues.”
When asked, “Do you hate gay people?”
Perkins quickly answered, “No. Not at all,” but added that
“homosexual behavior is harmful not only to society, but more
importantly to the individuals who engage in that behavior.” (The
video is embedded in the right panel of this page.)
In an earlier broadcast on MSNBC's
Hardball, Perkins
denied that his group has previously called for the criminalization
of “homosexual behavior.”
“We have not been, we are not, and we
are not going to be working to re-criminalize homosexual behavior.
That's not the issue today,” Perkins said.