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Watch: Top Anti-Gay Bigot’s Marriage Fibs Decimated By Conservative Lawyer-And Fox News Anchor

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Tony Perkins appeared on Fox News Sunday thinking he could spread his anti-gay marriage hate to a friendly audience, but his claims were decimated and debunked by one of America’s top conservative attorneys and the Fox News host.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins just had a very bad visit on “Fox News Sunday.” His center seat apparently was the designated hot seat. On the left was former Bush Solicitor General Ted Olson, one of the two attorneys who sought the demise of Prop 8 by bringing it all the way to the Supreme Court, then went on to win marriage equality in Virginia. On the right was Fox News anchor Chris Wallace. 

Perkins might have expected a grand old time where he could spew his packaged talking points about poor persecuted Christian wedding cake vendors and victimized parents forced to find their children learning that gay people aren’t the monsters their parents portray. 

But he was wrong.

Perkins tried to tell Olson his comparison of court decisions on same-sex marriage to court decisions on interracial marriage were wrong.

“Apples and oranges,” Perkins insisted, “because we’re talking about an arbitrary boundary created by man between the races. That doesn’t exist in nature. There is a boundary between people of the same sex getting married. They can’t procreate. They can’t — there’s nothing in nature to say that’s normal.”

Except, of course, the hundreds of species in which homosexuality have been widely documented.

Perkins’ career as an anti-gay activist is so rabid under his leadership the Southern Poverty Law Center was forced to designate the Family Research Council as a certified anti-gay hate group. 

So it’s not surprising he would claim on Fox News that the U.S. Supreme Court’s explanation of the purpose of marriage is wrong.

“I’d like to ask Ted [Olson],” Perkins says, “what’s the purpose of marriage?”

“The purpose of marriage is what the Supreme Court has said 14 times,” Olson replies. “It’s a fundamental right that involves privacy, association, liberty, and being with the person you love and forming a part of the community and being treated equally with the rest of society.”

“That’s not true,” is Perkins’ retort.

And there was more:

PERKINS: Well, we know from the social science that children do best with a mom and a dad. That’s why our policies in this country have preferred marriage and given benefits to it.

But let me — if love is the factor, what boundaries are there?

OLSON: You want the sky to fall because two people living next door to you —

PERKINS: No, I —

OLSON: What court after court after court has said, that allowing people of the same sex to marry the person that they love, to be part of the community and to be treated equally, does no damage to heterosexual marriage.

(CROSSTALK)

OLSON: And court after court after court has said children living in a same-sex relationship do as well or better than people in other communities.

PERKINS: The court doesn’t study this social —

OLSON: The court heard evidence.

PERKINS: Let me ask you, what are the boundaries, though? If it’s just love, what are the boundaries? Where can we go with marriage?

WALLACE: What are you suggesting? That they’re going to be polygamy. That people will be marrying their pets?

(CROSSTALK)

PERKINS: No, I didn’t say that. If we remove the natural established boundaries for marriage, the union of a man and woman, we have removed those boundaries, those guardrails.

There’s no arbitrary boundary —

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: What about the argument that Ted Olson makes, which is, all right, you and your wife live happily in this house, there’s a same-sex couple living here. What’s the damage to you?

PERKINS: Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about the wedding vendors that have been put out of business. Let’s talk —

WALLACE: I’m not talking about that. That’s a different issue.

PERKINS: No, it’s —

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: It’s a different issue. I’m asking you, what’s the impact on you and your family to have these people living next door?

PERKINS: Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about my children all of a sudden, in school are taught values and morals that contradict what I teach as a parent at home. That’s happening already across the country in those states that have recognized and forced same-sex marriage on the states.

Let’s talk about the business place, let’s about Aaron and Melissa Klein, a bakery in Oregon, forced out of business, forced to pay $150,000 in fines, simply because they didn’t want to participate in a same-sex marriage.

WALLACE: We’re gong to get to that in a second. But your argument as to whether somehow this damages the Perkins to have another couple next door?

OLSON: Well, everyone who has ever talked about this says there’s no heterosexual couple that is going to decide to get divorced or not to get married or not to raise children just because another couple next to them is treated equally and with respect and decency under our Constitution. That is why we have courts.

The same argument Mr. Perkins was making was made with respect to interracial marriages in 1967 — 30 some states at one point prohibited interracial marriages.

And talk about the color of the skin? People were making the same arguments. Marriage is wrong between people of different races. We have to stop that.

When the Supreme Court finally acted, 16 states were still prohibiting interracial marriages.

As far as the marriage vendors, the people in the flower business or in the — in the cake business or whatever it happens to be, we have a civil rights law that say if you’re going to engage in commerce, you’re not going to discriminate against people on the basis of their religion, sex or race. That’s a simple solution to the problem. Massachusetts —

PERKINS: Driving them out of business?

OLSON: Massachusetts allowed same-sex marriage 10 years ago. Nobody has been put out of marriage —

(CROSSTALK)

OLSON: It’s a canard.

PERKINS: It’s not.

Clearly, if “traditional marriage” advocates have lost Fox News, same-sex marriage has won.

And for the record, Perkins is, to be kind, twisting facts.

First, the “wedding vendors that have been put out of business,” claim is false. No wedding vendor — say, cake baker or event space owner — who has refused to do business with a same-sex couple has been “put out of business.” They may have been fined for violating civil rights laws, they may have even voluntarily chosen to move their business online or close up shop, but that was their decision, not the state’s or any same-sex couple’s.

Next, Perkins needs to stop fibbing about the Massachusetts adoption agency. The fact is Catholic Charities, despite the vote of its board, opted to stop doing business in Massachusetts rather than allow gay people or same-sex couples to adopt the children in their care. It was their choice, they were not, “driven out of business.”

Finally, those “studies” Perkins like to bring up were of heterosexual couples raising children compared to heterosexual single parents raising children. Same-sex parents weren’t part of the equation. 

Watch:

 

Image via YouTube
Transcript via Fox News
Hat tip and video: David Edwards at Raw Story

 

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News

‘Your Client Is a Criminal Defendant’: Judge Denies Trump Request to Skip Trial for SCOTUS

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8 hours ago

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April 15, 2024

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Barely hours after New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan gave Donald Trump the same set of rules requiring him to appear in court as all other criminal defendants, the ex-president’s attorney requested his client be allowed to skip trial next Thursday to attend the U.S. Supreme Court arguments on his immunity claim.

“If you do not show up there will be an arrest,” Judge Merchan had told Trump Monday at the start of his criminal trial, according to MSNBC’s Jesse Rodriguez. Trump is facing 34 felony charges for falsification of business records related to his alleged attempts to cover up hush money payments in an effort to protect his 2016 presidential campaign.

Judge Merchan had read from the same rules that apply to all defendants, but right at the end of day one of trial Trump attorney Todd Blanche made his request.

MSNBC’s Lisa Rubin reports, “after the potential jurors are gone, the fireworks start after Blanche asks Merchan to allow Trump to attend the SCOTUS argument on presidential immunity next Thursday, 4/25.”

READ MORE: ‘What Will Happen in the Situation Room?’: Trump Appearing to Sleep in Court Fuels Concerns

“The Manhattan DA’s office opposes the request, saying they have accommodated Trump enough,” MSNBC’s Katie Phang adds, citing Rubin’s reporting.

Judge Merchan “acknowledges a Supreme Court argument is a ‘big deal,’ but says that the jury’s time is a big deal too. Blanche says they don’t think they should be here at all, suggesting that the trial never should have been scheduled during campaign season.”

“That comment appeared to trigger Merchan, who asked, voice dripping with incredulity, ‘You don’t think you should be here at all?'” Rubin writes.

“He then softly asks Blanche to move along from that objection, on which he has already ruled. Merchan then got stern, ruling that Trump is not required to be at SCOTUS but is required, by law, to attend his criminal trial here.”

“Your client is a criminal defendant in New York. He is required to be here. He is not required to be in the Supreme Court. I will see him here next week,” Judge Merchan told Blanche, CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane reported.

That was not the only request Trump’s attorneys made to have their client excused from the criminal proceedings.

Lawfare managing editor Tyler McBrien reports, “Blanche says that the campaign has taken pains to schedule events on Wednesdays and asks Merchan if Trump be excused from any hearings that take place on Wednesdays, when the jury is in recess. Merchan says he will take this into consideration.”

READ MORE: ‘Scared to Death’: GOP Ex-Congressman Brings Hammer Down on ‘Weak’ Trump

Blanche also asked Judge Merchan to allow Trump to skip trial to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation. While the judge has yet to rule, Trump told reporters at the end of day one of trial, “it looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation.”

The judge told Trump, “I cannot rule on those dates at this time.”

But Trump told reporters, “It looks like the judge isn’t going to allow me to escape this scam, it’s a scam trial.”

Watch below or at this link
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News

‘What Will Happen in the Situation Room?’: Trump Appearing to Sleep in Court Fuels Concerns

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10 hours ago

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April 15, 2024

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Donald Trump’s apparent sleeping in court on day one of his criminal trial for alleged business fraud related to a cover-up of “hush money” election interference has critics concerned.

While initial reactions to the news largely mocked him as “Sleepy Don,” or “Drowsy Don,” political and legal experts are wondering if the 77-year old ex-president would be able to stay awake during times of crisis, when an alert president would be critical to the nation’s security.

The New York Times‘ Maggie Haberman, the longtime “Trump whisperer,” reported the ex-president “seemed alternately irritated and exhausted Monday morning,” “appeared to nod off a few times, his mouth going slack and his head drooping onto his chest.” She added the ex-president’s attorney “passed him notes for several minutes before Mr. Trump appeared to jolt awake and notice them.”

READ MORE: ‘Staged Photo Op’ of Trump With Black Chick-fil-A Patrons Was ‘True Retail Politics’ Says Fox News

Haberman followed up her Times article with a CNN appearance detailing more of what she saw. The Guardian‘s Victoria Bekiempis, MSNBC’s Katie Phang, and others also reported Trump was seen nodding off.

Critics raised concerns that question Trump’s ability to perform the duties of President.

“If Trump is too old and weak to stay awake at his own criminal trial, what do you think will happen in the Situation Room?” asked former senior advisor to President Barack Obama Dan Pfeiffer.

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch invoked Hillary Clinton’s famous “3 AM phone call” ad from the 2008 campaign, and wrote:

“2008: Which candidate can handle the 3 a.m. phone call?

2024: Which candidate can handle the 3 p.m. phone call?”

Several also noted that Clinton, the former U.S. Secretary of State, testified for 11 hours on live television before a congressional committee and did not fall asleep. Some also noted that President Joe Biden sat for a five-hour deposition with Special Consul Robert Hur and did not fall asleep.

READ MORE: ‘Not a Good Start’: Judge Slams Trump’s ‘Offensive’ Recusal Claims as a ‘Loose End’

Calling it “simply incredible,” professor of law, MSNBC/NBC News legal contributor and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance asked, “If he can’t keep his eyes open when his own liberty is at stake, why would Americans have confidence he’s capable of focus when our country’s interests require sound presidential leadership?”

MSNBC contributor Brian Tyler Cohen commented, “To be clear, ‘Sleepy Joe’ is awake and criss-crossing the country, while Trump is literally asleep at his own criminal trial.”

Former journalist Jennifer Schultz observed, “Moment of truth for all the legacy media outlets who hyped the Biden age stories. Now we have actual evidence of the other candidate falling asleep at a critical time.”

 

Image via Shutterstock

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News

Fox Personality’s Tweet Called ‘Jury Tampering’ by US Congressman

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13 hours ago

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April 15, 2024

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A Fox personality and Fox News contributor’s social media post on Monday is raising eyebrows, as one U.S. Congressman calls it “jury tampering” and a legal expert suggests it could be “conspiring to commit jury tampering.”

Clay Travis is an attorney and the founder of the conservative “sports and American culture” website Outkick, which was purchased by Fox Corporation in 2021.

His Fox News bio calls him “the founder of the fastest-growing national multimedia platform,” and, “One of the most electrifying and outspoken personalities in the industry,” who “provides his unfiltered opinion on the most compelling headlines throughout sports, culture, and politics.”

READ MORE: ‘Not a Good Start’: Judge Slams Trump’s ‘Offensive’ Recusal Claims as a ‘Loose End’

On Monday, Travis’ account on X, formerly Twitter, displayed a post that reads: “If you’re a Trump supporter in New York City who is a part of the jury pool, do everything you can to get seated on the jury and then refuse to convict as a matter of principle, dooming the case via hung jury. It’s the most patriotic thing you could possibly do.”

“Jury tampering. That’s what they do. *It’s a felony,” wrote U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) in response.

National security attorney Bradley Moss weighed in, writing, “Clay is arguably conspiring to commit jury tampering here by encouraging someone to deliberately engage in jury nullification. Not a wise move by Clay.”

Former federal and state prosecutor Ron Filipkowski, now the editor-in-chief of MediasTouch, wrote simply, “This is MAGA.”

READ MORE: ‘Scared to Death’: GOP Ex-Congressman Brings Hammer Down on ‘Weak’ Trump

Sirius XM host Dean Obeidallah, also an attorney, commented, “Hoping Manhattan DA is aware of this attempted jury tampering by Fox News regular Clay Travis.” He also wrote: “This is the exact type of juror tampering I knew Trumpers would engage in. Next Clay will tell Trumpers to bribe jurors or witnesses. MAGA is a cancer!”

Travis, responding to Congressman Swalwell, denied the allegation:

“This isn’t jury tampering you imbecile. I would nullify if I were seated on this jury as a matter of principle. I think all Americans with a comprehension of basic justice should do the same.”

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