Guns Vs. Gays: Tony Perkins’ Extremely Dangerous Hypocrisy
Tony Perkins is again attacking gays, screaming “religious liberty,” and slamming ENDA — this time cherry-picking polls to do so. But when it comes to gun control, Perkins sings a different tune.
Tony Perkins, it will come as no surprise, is one of America’s greatest hypocrites. Ignore the fact for the moment that before he became the head of the Family Research Council (FRC) it was not listed among the Southern Poverty Law Center’s anti-gay hate groups, and ignore the fact for the moment that when Perkins was managing a Louisiana political campaign he paid $82,500 for the use of former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke’s mailing list — yet Perkins claims to be a moral leader. Heck, he even signs his fundraising emails by quoting Bible verses.
Perkins earlier this year spent months railing against Congress’ attempts to expand background checks for gun purchases — legislation that 92 percent of Americans supported.
“This idea of background checks is very concerning given the fact that … the United States military has been increasingly showing hostility toward evangelicals and Catholics as being somehow threats to national security and people that need to be watched,” Perkins claimed:
“Well, what does that have to do with gun control? Well, what happens if all a sudden you are identified as an evangelical, Bible-believing fundamentalist and the government decides you’ve got to be put on a watch list?”
“Part of the provisions of this background check is kind of a system where if a caution comes up when they put your name in, you don’t get a chance to buy a gun.”
Fear-mongering Perkins neglected to mention that the bill Congress ultimately killed had extremely strong language that made anyone keeping a list of gun purchasers a felony — far stronger protections for gun rights advocates than are currently on the books.
So imagine my surprise when Perkins late yesterday in his daily anti-gay fundraising email slammed ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would protect LGBT people from being fired merely for being LGBT — a basic right that the vast majority of Americans not only support but believe already exists –Â by using a poll.
“In a stunningly lopsided poll, U.S. voters universally supported the rights of companies like Masterpiece Cakes, Arlene’s Flowers, Elane Photography, and others who turned down ‘wedding’ business from same-sex couples — and are now paying for it (usually literally),” Perkins writes in his fear-mongering fundraiser:
“In a sharply divided country where Americans rarely agree on anything — let alone social issues — Rasmussen Reports found a shocking amount of consensus on the question of businesses’ rights in the marriage debate. ‘If a Christian wedding photographer who has deeply held religious beliefs opposing same-sex marriage is asked to work a same-sex wedding ceremony, 85% of Americans believe he has the right to say no.’ Only 8% disagree. That’s as unanimous as it gets in the polling community.”
Actually, the expanded background checks poll — which 92 percent of Americans support — is “as unanimous as it gets in the polling community.”
But Perkins didn’t want his followers to know about that. And yes, he has close ties to the NRA.
Tony Perkins can’t be fired for being Christian — yet just last week he said he wants an ENDA for Christians.
“If anyone needs workplace protections these days, it’s conservative Christians,†Perkins perversely proclaimed. “Under ENDA, their nightmares will only intensify.â€
While you’re here, read a bit more of Perkins’ disgusting attack on gay people — ordinary Americans struggling like everyone else, oftentimes worse, because we can be fired in dozens of states just for being LGBT.
“When religious liberty collides with same-sex ‘marriage,’ something has to give,” Perkins writes in the opening of his email yesterday. “And usually, that ‘something’ is Christians’ rights.”
In this mad dash to redefine marriage in America, many in society are so focused on giving homosexuals their way that they aren’t stopping to see who gets tramples underfoot. The real victims, who include children, religious business owners, and employees across the country, have been lost in a convenient storyline of inequality and discrimination.
While the media spills oceans of ink on the perceived injustice toward same-sex couples, very few reporters are telling the stories of Christians being hauled into court, before human rights commissions, and even their own employers for subscribing to a view on marriage that — until last year — President Barack Obama shared! In the meantime, wedding vendors from Washington State to New Jersey are trapped in the middle, wondering why their rights are suddenly less important than homosexuals’. When did it become acceptable to sacrifice the freedoms of conscience and free exercise of religion on the same-sex “wedding” altar?
When did the Founding Fathers say the Bible should be used as a cudgel against your enemies?
Let’s be very clear here. The repeated claims by the religious right, that same-sex marriage laws are a threat to Christian business owners is a lie. In all these cases, it’s not same-sex marriage legislation that is at issue, rather it is the states’ often decades-old anti-discrimination laws — the same ones that protect Christians from discrimination — under which supposedly “Christian” business owners find themselves in trouble.
Perkins’ arguments were the same ones used by Bible-wielding Christians opposed to equal rights for Blacks and interracial couples.
Given Perkins’ ties to the KKK, that’s something of which he should be intimately aware.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
