Rick Warren‘s son Matthew died by suicide over the weekend, which The New Civil Rights Movement reported.
Sadly, some people who couldn’t find a sufficient amount of human compassion responded in a manner that was unbecoming their humanity. A very, very few people. The vast majority of responses I saw here and on social media were amazingly kind and generous and compassionate. I was very proud of those who put their politics away for another day.
I get where Fox News’ Megyn Kelly wanted to go with her “story,” which frankly wasn’t worthy of a national network. (Just as Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy “news” site is the epitome of bad “journalism.”)
But using the head of a certified anti-gay hate group — hosting Tony Perkins – to prop up her argument against the ignorant and insignificant nameless haters is just stupid, and self-defeating.
Why?
Because Tony Perkins’ job is to be a professional hater of gay people.
And therefore he has lost any credibility gay people, since attacking us is the core of his résumé.
“Near the end of the segment, Kelly asked Perkins how he felt about being ‘the subject of attacks’ over his opposition to marriage equality, suggesting the pro-gay activists are the ones being intolerant,” Equality Matters reports, posting the video, transcript, and text below:
KELLY: A lot of people thought, think, that Pastor Warren is on the wrong side of the gay marriage issue. You can relate to him in this way – not the being on the wrong side, I’m not passing a judgment on that – but you also oppose gay marriage and have been the subject of attacks, and it seems like some, not all, but some of those who want tolerance and acceptance, in their effort to get it, are very willing to pass judgment, alienate, attack, and go about it in a way that may be undermining the very thing they seek.
PERKINS: Absolutely, I think you’re absolutely correct. I mean, just to show a little bit of human compassion to a parent who has lost a child would go a long way in showing that they just want to be accepted and enjoy tolerance. [emphasis added]
http://cloudfront.equalitymatters.org/static/flash/pl52.swf
The irony of asking a hate group leader if he’s bothered by the alleged “intolerance†of his critics seems to be lost on Kelly.
Perkins isn’t just an opponent of same-sex marriage – he’s made a career of peddling false and degrading smears about LGBT people, including:
- Falsely claiming that gay men are more likely to molest children
- Comparing gay activists to terrorists and labeling them pawns of the devil
- Applauding Uganda’s “Kill the Gays†bill, calling it an effort “to uphold moral conductâ€
Perkinshas repeatedly used discussions about LGBT suicide to score cheap political points, claiming that LGBT teens kill themselves because they know being gay is “abnormal†and that they are “in rebellion to God’s design.†In a letter to supporters, Perkins called the anti-suicide “It Gets Better†project an attempt to “recruit†kids into a “lifestyle†of “perversion.†He’s even blamed high suicide rates in the military on the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.â€
Kelly’s softball segment is the second time five days that she’s attempted to whitewash Perkins’ well-documented history of extreme anti-gay commentary.