Tony Perkins
Tony Perkins heads the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBT hate group located in Washington, D.C. Perkins has a sordid political history, having once purchased Klansman David Duke鈥檚 mailing list for use in a Louisiana political campaign he was managing. In 2001, Perkins gave a speech to a Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group.
About Tony Perkins
Since joining the FRC, Perkins has taken the group in a harder anti-LGBT direction, using it to publish false propaganda about that community and contending that gay rights advocates intend to round up Christians in 鈥渂oxcars.鈥
In His Own Words:
鈥淲hile activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two. 鈥 It is a homosexual problem.鈥
鈥 FRC website, 2010
鈥淭hose who understand the homosexual community 鈥 the activists 鈥 they鈥檙e very aggressive, they鈥檙e 鈥 everything they accuse us of they are in triplicate. They鈥檙e intolerant, they鈥檙e hateful, vile, they鈥檙e spiteful. .... To me, that is the height of hatred, to be silent when we know there are individuals that are engaged in activity, behavior, and an agenda that will destroy them and our nation.鈥
鈥 Speaking to the Oak Initiative Summit, April 2011
鈥淭he videos are titled 鈥業t Gets Better.鈥 They are aimed at persuading kids that although they鈥檒l face struggles and perhaps bullying for 鈥榗oming out鈥 as homosexual (or transgendered or some other perversion), life will get better. 鈥 It鈥檚 disgusting. And it鈥檚 part of a concerted effort to persuade kids that homosexuality is okay and actually to recruit them into that lifestyle.鈥
鈥 FRC fundraising letter, August 2011
The marriage debate 鈥渋s literally about the entire culture: it鈥檚 about the rule of law, it鈥檚 about the country, it鈥檚 about our future, it鈥檚 about redefining the curriculum in our schools, it鈥檚 about driving a wedge between parent and child, it鈥檚 about the loss of religious freedom, it鈥檚 about the inability to be who we are as a people.鈥
鈥 "The Janet Mefford Show," May 22, 2014
鈥淭hose who practice Islam in its entirety, it鈥檚 not just a religion. It鈥檚 an economic system, it鈥檚 a judicial system, and it is a military 鈥 a military system. And it is 鈥 it has Shariah law that you鈥檝e heard about and those things will tear and destroy the fabric of a democracy. So we have to be very clear about our laws and restrain those things that would harm the whole. We are a nation 鈥 let me be very clear about this. We are a nation that was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, that鈥檚 the foundation of our nation, not Islam, but the Judeo-Christian God.鈥
鈥 "Washington Watch" radio show, September 2014
鈥淲hat most people either don鈥檛 realize or willfully ignore is that only 16 percent of Islam is a religion 鈥 the rest is a combination of military, judicial, economic, and political system. Christianity, by comparison, isn鈥檛 a judicial or economic code 鈥 but a faith. So to suggest that we would be imposing some sort of religious test on Muslims is inaccurate. Sharia is not a religion in the context of the First Amendment.鈥
鈥 FRC email, December 2015
鈥淚 know they鈥檒l mock at that idea, but look, if you are a male 鈥 genetically you are a male, biologically you鈥檙e a male 鈥 and you say, 鈥榃ell, I鈥檓 not a male. I鈥檓 a female.鈥 I mean, what鈥檚 to keep you from saying that you鈥檙e an animal?鈥
鈥 Tony Perkins on being transgender on his 鈥淲ashington Watch鈥 radio show, May 14, 2018
鈥淭hree years since the decision that redefined marriage for America, the Left is still bulldozing their way through every possible social norm. The country finally realized -- too late -- that this isn't about two people who love each other. It's about obliterating every moral and cultural boundary humans have ever known.鈥
鈥 Tony Perkins, 鈥淢ilitary鈥檚 鈥楧on鈥檛 Ask鈥 the Turning Point in Bigger War,鈥 July 19, 2018
Background
Anthony Richard 鈥淭ony鈥 Perkins, who since 2003 has served as president of the anti-LGBT Family Research Council (FRC), was born and raised in Cleveland, Oklahoma. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Liberty University, a far-right Christian college in Lynchburg, Virginia, established by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. He earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Louisiana State University.
After college, Perkins became a Marine. Following his service, he became a Baton Rouge police officer, where he also served as a law enforcement trainer for the State Department鈥檚 Antiterrorism Assistance Program, which trains law enforcement around the world.
According to a in The Nation, while serving as an officer in Baton Rouge in 1992, Perkins failed to report to his superiors that anti-abortion activists were planning to break through police barriers. That was Operation Rescue鈥檚 鈥淪ummer of Purpose,鈥 when the group targeted the Delta Women鈥檚 Clinic in Baton Rouge. Perkins was splitting his time between his police work and his job as a reporter for 鈥淲oody Vision,鈥 a right-wing television station owned by Louisiana State Rep. Louis 鈥淲oody鈥 Jenkins, Perkins鈥 mentor.
Perkins and his camera crew were often outside the clinic, The Nation reported. Victor Sachse, a local business owner and volunteer patient escort for the clinic, said Perkins鈥 reporting was so skewed and incendiary that the clinic demanded Perkins鈥 removal from the facility鈥檚 grounds.
In order to control an increasingly tense situation, the police chief had a chain-link fence erected to separate anti-abortion activists from pro-choice protesters and called in sheriff鈥檚 deputies and prison guards as extra forces. Perkins publicly criticized the department and the chief. After learning about plans by anti-abortion activists to break through police lines, Perkins failed to notify his superiors. As a result of his actions, he was suspended from duty in 1992, according to The Nation, and subsequently quit.
In 1996, Perkins managed the U.S. Senate campaign of Woody Jenkins. During the campaign, former Klan chieftain David Duke contacted Jenkins and suggested he hire Impact Mail & Printing and use the group鈥檚 services for automated phone calls, according to a Federal Election Commission (FEC) conciliation agreement, which shows 鈥淛enkins purchased several rounds of calls from Impact Mail.鈥
People who received the calls from the campaign complained because Duke鈥檚 name appeared on caller IDs. Jenkins tried to cancel the transaction with Impact Mail, but could not because Perkins had already signed a contract. Jenkins allegedly instructed Perkins to stop payment on the check to the company and 鈥渄irected that Impact Mail be paid through Courtney Communications, the campaign鈥檚 media firm,鈥 according to the conciliation agreement, which said Jenkins 鈥渄id not want his campaign to be associated with Impact Mail.鈥
The Jenkins campaign 鈥渒nowingly and willfully filed false disclosure reports鈥 showing its media firm as the vendor of $82,500 in services actually provided by Impact Mail, according to the FEC document. The campaign settled with a $3,000 fine.
Beginning in 1998, Perkins served as a Louisiana state representative for eight years. On May 17, 2001, he gave a speech to the state chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a white supremacist group that advocates against miscegenation and whose website once described black people as a 鈥渞etrograde species of humanity.鈥 Perkins addressed the group while standing in front of a Confederate flag.
He claimed not to know the group鈥檚 ideology at the time, but it had been widely publicized in Louisiana and the nation. In 1999 鈥 two years before Perkins鈥 speech to the CCC 鈥 U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott had been embroiled in a national scandal over his ties to the group. GOP chairman Jim Nicholson then urged Republicans to avoid the CCC because of its 鈥渞acist views.鈥
Perkins does not mention this scandal on the FRC鈥檚 website. Speaking of his political career, he instead claims that he authored and passed the nation鈥檚 first covenant marriage law in Louisiana in1997. A , according to the largely Christian movement behind such laws, is a legally distinct marriage, in which spouses agree to obtain premarital counseling and accept more limited grounds for divorce.
As a state legislator, he ran for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2002, but suffered a fourth-place finish in the primaries and ended up joining FRC in the fall of 2003. He left the Louisiana Legislature the next year after serving two terms.
Perkins at the helm
Under Perkins鈥 leadership, the FRC has continued to peddle false claims about homosexuality and has made combating the 鈥渉omosexual agenda鈥 a seemingly obsessive interest. Part of the FRC鈥檚 strategy is to tout the false claim that gay men are more likely to sexually abuse children. The American Psychological Association, among others, has concluded that, 鈥渉omosexual men are not more likely to sexually abuse children than heterosexual men are.鈥
That doesn鈥檛 matter to the FRC, though. Perkins has defended the 鈥済ay men as pedophiles鈥 claim, including in a with the Southern Poverty Law Center鈥檚 Mark Potok on the November 30, 2010, edition of MSNBC鈥檚 鈥淗ardball With Chris Matthews.鈥 As the show ended, Perkins stated, 鈥淚f you look at the American College of Pediatricians, they say the research is overwhelming that homosexuality poses a danger to children. So Mark is wrong. He needs to go back and do his own research.鈥
In fact, the 人兽性交 did its research. The college, despite its professional-sounding name, is a tiny, explicitly religious-right breakaway group from the similarly named American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the 60,000-member association of the profession. The American College of Pediatricians (ACP) splintered from the AAP because of the AAP鈥檚 support of gay and lesbian parents.
Publications by the ACP, which has only about 200 members, have been roundly attacked by leading scientific authorities who say they are baseless. They also accuse the college of distorting and misrepresenting their work. (MSNBC鈥檚 Matthews offered a on a follow-up show that described the American College of Pediatricians and separated it from the AAP.)
In late 2010, Perkins held a webcast to discuss the dire consequences of allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military. Dubious statistics from a poll commissioned by the FRC and the Center for Security Policy 鈥 which was named an anti-Muslim hate group in 2015 鈥 were used during the webcast. The webcast also mentioned the FRC report, Mission Compromised, written by retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, the FRC鈥檚 senior fellow for national security. The report contended that allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly would undermine morale and discipline and infringe on the religious freedom of military chaplains, who would be forced to accept homosexuality and would no longer be permitted to express their religious beliefs about it.
In addition, Maginnis predicted that heterosexual service members would be forced to take 鈥渟ensitivity classes鈥 that promote the 鈥渉omosexual lifestyle.鈥 He added: 鈥淗omosexual activists seek to force the U.S. military to embrace their radical views and sexual conduct, no matter the consequences for combat effectiveness.鈥
Taking on anti-bullying policies
Under Perkins, the FRC also waded into the debate over anti-bullying policies, which became a matter of national discussion after several LGBT children committed suicide in late 2010. On October11, 2010, The Washington Post published a commentary by Perkins in which he repeated his argument that anti-bullying policies are not really intended to protect students. 鈥淗omosexual activist groups like GLSEN [Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network] 鈥 are exploiting these tragedies to push their agenda of demanding not only tolerance of homosexual individuals, but active affirmation of homosexual conduct and their efforts to redefine the family.鈥
In 2013, Perkins that allowing gay people into the Boy Scouts would put children in danger of sexual assault. When pressed by the CNN host, Perkins again resorted to the FRC鈥檚 stock claim, as Perkins once put it, that pedophilia 鈥渋s a homosexual problem.鈥 鈥淭hey [Boy Scouts] are trying to create an environment that is protective of children,鈥 he said. 鈥淭his [allowing LGBT Scouts and Scout leaders] doesn鈥檛 make it more protective. There is a disproportionate number of male on boy 鈥 when we get on pedophilia, male on boy is a higher incident rate of that.鈥
Despite gains made for LGBT equality, Perkins and the FRC have continued their anti-gay activities, including opposition to the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). According to Perkins, President Obama was working with the 鈥渢otalitarian homosexual lobby鈥 to sneak ENDA into law and should that happen, freedom of religion will be 鈥渄estroyed.鈥
Perkins also has worked to keep America safe from Betty Crocker. In September 2013, he called for a boycott of the iconic brand because General Mills, which produces it, donated custom cakes to three LGBT couples in Minnesota who were married after the state legalized same-sex marriage a month earlier.
In 2014, Perkins made a series of anti-LGBT statements, claiming that LGBT people are a danger to Christians. In June, he said that gay rights advocates are 鈥済oing to start rolling out the boxcars to start hauling off Christians.鈥 In August, he agreed with a caller who predicted on his radio show that anti-Christian violence will erupt in America. After the caller wondered if we are 鈥済oing to find ourselves being loaded in cattle cars like it was when the Nazis took over before we realize we are in such terrible danger,鈥 Perkins hailed her claim as an 鈥渆xcellent point.鈥
鈥淵ou鈥檝e just hit the nail on the head,鈥 he exclaimed, warning that 鈥渋solationist鈥 and 鈥渓ibertarian鈥 politicians like Rand Paul are leaving America鈥檚 national security vulnerable and that violent anti-Christian persecution taking place in the Middle East could soon find its way here.
Perkins, with his political experience and connections, has also been part of the executive committee of the secretive and powerful Council for National Policy (CNP), a group of hundreds of the most influential conservatives in the country. The group is so tight-lipped its members are instructed never to admit membership or even name the group.
Perkins was vice president of the organization in 2014 鈥 one of its three executive officers. On the CNP board of governors in 2014 were Michael Peroutka, who served for many years on the board of the neo-Confederate League of the South. Another is Mathew 鈥淢at鈥 Staver, head of the virulently anti-LGBT hate group Liberty Counsel; Joseph Farah of the far-right conspiracist website WND (formerly World Net Daily); and Alan Sears, head of the anti-LGBT Alliance Defending Freedom, which supports the criminalization of homosexuality.
In 2015, as the FRC tilted into anti-Muslim sentiment 鈥 especially with the hiring of retired Lt. General William 鈥淛erry鈥 Boykin 鈥 Perkins Islam is such a danger that Muslim Americans should not have the same religious freedoms as other citizens.
In an email to FRC followers in 2015, Perkins made the strange claim that 鈥渙nly 16 percent of Islam is a religion,鈥 and that the rest is a 鈥渕ilitary, judicial, economic, and political system.鈥 Perkins 鈥渨e lose our identity in the shadow of multiculturalism.鈥 He cited France and Britain as examples.
鈥淚f people want to live in America 鈥 including Muslims 鈥 they need to embrace our Constitution and our culture,鈥 he continued. 鈥淥thers have said in less artful ways what conservatives have been warning for years: there is no such thing as coexistence between Sharia law and our constitutional republic. That isn鈥檛 religious prejudice, but an ideological reality.鈥
After a man with radical Islamic beliefs fatally shot 49 people at an Orlando LGBT nightclub in June 2016, Perkins pointed the finger at the Obama Administration 鈥 claiming that the administration marginalized Christians and elevated Islam. 鈥淲e have to deal with the underlying issue, which is an ideology that鈥檚 incompatible with American liberty,鈥 Perkins wrote. 鈥淎n ideology, tragically, that this administration has empowered through its public policy and private diplomacy.鈥
Perkins has continued with the anti-LGBT mission of the FRC. He even waded into the battle over allowing transgender people to use public restrooms and facilities in accordance with their gender identities. Perkins, like other anti-LGBT activists, claims that allowing transgender people to use restrooms in this way endangers women because predatory men could pretend to be transgender.
In a 2016 FRC email to followers about the issue, : 鈥淚f government can force the 鈥榥ormalization鈥 or even the celebration of something as universally unnatural as men using women鈥檚 restrooms and vice versa, then it can force the rest of its agenda on the American people very easily,鈥 resulting in 鈥渟ocial chaos鈥 and the breakdown of all 鈥渟exual inhibition and morality.鈥
During 2016, Perkins was part of the Republican committee as a delegate from Louisiana that created the GOP platform. Perkins that supported conversion therapy for minors, though the wording, apparently revised from the original, does not specifically mention conversion therapy 鈥 a pseudoscientific practice that claims to change a person鈥檚 sexual orientation from gay to straight, and has been denounced by every major U.S. medical and mental health association. The platform committee ultimately affirming 鈥渢he right of parents to determine the proper treatment or therapy, for their minor children.鈥
Perkins opted to support then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016, even after Trump鈥檚 statements about groping women without consent came to light. Perkins 鈥渋mmoral鈥 and 鈥渧ery concerning,鈥 but he claimed he wasn鈥檛 backing Trump because they have shared values but 鈥渟hared concerns.鈥
After Trump鈥檚 election, the FRC and Perkins were heavily involved in the formation of policy for the new administration. FRC Senior Fellow Kenneth Blackwell was named the head of domestic policy for the transition team. The FRC also took steps to ensure the new administration would undo President Obama鈥檚 work advancing LGBT equality 鈥 efforts that come after that a Trump presidency would be better for the LGBT community than a Hillary Clinton presidency.
FRC and other conservative evangelicals continue to enjoy unprecedented access to the White House since the Trump administration took office. Perkins that he had been there 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know how many more times in the first six months this year than I was during the entire Bush administration.鈥
Perkins may have been one of the behind Trump鈥檚 ban on transgender troops in the military; he claimed that he had been pressing Trump for months to implement a ban on transgender troops, which eventually resulted in Trump that he would do so. The announcement blindsided the president鈥檚 defense secretary and Republican congressional leaders.
In May 2018, Perkins was appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Freedom, where he will serve a two-year term along with fellow anti-LGBT appointee , who also has a long history of right-wing activism. Perkins will continue to serve as FRC president during his term on the Commission.
The appointment is in line with FRC鈥檚 push to treat international religious freedom in U.S. policy as a national security issue rather than simply a human rights issue, as demonstrated in an written by FRC鈥檚 Travis Weber. 鈥淒espite a pattern of ongoing persecution and instability in various countries around the world, which is clearly related to a lack of religious freedom in those places,鈥 Weber wrote, 鈥渨e have nevertheless resisted the possibility that homeland security threats exist because we have failed to cultivate religious freedom elsewhere.鈥
FRC was also part of the July 2018 鈥淢inisterial to Advance Religious Freedom鈥 gathering and hosted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a darling of the U.S. Christian Right. Perkins was in attendance and praised Pompeo for convening the event, which he claimed is a 鈥渢urning point for millions.鈥 He also religious freedom would somehow decrease the likelihood of terrorism.
On July 19 2018, one of Perkins鈥 鈥淲ashington Watch鈥 columns on its website on the twenty-fifth anniversary of President Bill Clinton鈥檚 , which prohibited military officials from discriminating against or harassing closeted service members). Perkins lamented that announcement as a 鈥渢urning point in a bigger war,鈥 and claimed that it was the 鈥渇irst major crack in the foundation of marriage and human sexuality.鈥 Then, he went on, the 2003 Supreme Court ruling , which overturned sodomy bans in the U.S., was 鈥渢he next shoe to drop,鈥 ostensibly because it overturned the criminalization of sex between adults of the same sex. Citing late Justice Antonin Scalia鈥檚 dissent, Perkins stated, 鈥淲ith prophetic insight, [Scalia] explained how six justices had just given the far-Left the only hammer they'd need to destroy thousands of years of human history.鈥 He continued, 鈥淎nyone being intellectually honest knew this was where LGBT extremists were pushing America.鈥
And three years after the legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.S., Perkins claimed in the 鈥淲ashington Watch鈥 piece that 鈥渢he Left is still bulldozing their way through every possible social norm.鈥 The goal of the Left, he said, 鈥淚sn鈥檛 same-sex marriage, but any kind of marriage鈥 and then he went on to link pedophilia to these goals, using a controversial TEDx talk () as proof that this is happening. The talk, Perkins argued, is 鈥渦sing the same born-that-way playbook as LGBT activists,鈥 and is 鈥渢rying to legitimize child abuse as the latest acceptable expression of sexuality.鈥
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