Tony Perkins: Homosexuality, Like Drug Abuse, Is ‘Destructive’ To Society
Tony Perkins yesterday, kicking off the Values Voters Summit, treated reporters and conservative politicians to a hypocritical hour-long speech that positioned the Family Research Council (FRC) as a victim — one that pledges to further its positions advocating against women and gays while being “civil” and loving. On the Family Research Council’s positions — which he stated were the same as those of iconic figures in history, from John Jay to George Washington to Mother Teresa — he added, “they are not battle plans of armies of hate.” Perkins then called homosexuality “destructive,” and an “unfortunate experience,” from which parents should “protect” their children, one which they should not “condone,” and likened it to drug use. Perkins, who demanded the HRC and the SPLC stop calling the FRC a hate group, also referred to same-sex marriage as “a novel definition of marriage and family.”
Perkins, who is the President of the FRC, indeed a certified anti-gay hate group, began his address with a five minute opening standup routine, then got down to business, stating, “there are some who would like to see us pack up and go away.” Perkins promised, to applause, “we are not going anywhere,” adding that the August 15 shooting at FRC headquarters has strengthened their resolve. Perkins also claimed the FBI is investigating the shooting “as an act of domestic terrorism.”
Perkins pledged to “redouble” FRC’s battle against women’s rights and same-sex marriage, and ironically told the audience of reporters and politicians, “I also pledge to redouble our efforts to advocate these ideas with civility and compassion.” Perkins in the past has said gay people “are intolerant. They are hateful. They are vile. They are spiteful…pawns of the enemy,†and said that gay young people “have a higher propensity to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict; homosexuals may recognize intuitively that their same-sex attractions are abnormal.†(Quotes via GLAAD.)
Perkins continued, claiming:
We are accountable to a higher authority than public opinion. In Ephesians the apostle Paul writes that we are to speak the truth in love. Our aim is to speak the truth in love and if we fail to do so we will acknowledge it and we will set the record straight, and that includes what we say regarding homosexuality, and I would hope that the other side would make a similar commitment.
We have asked and we renew the request today that the Southern Poverty Law Center  and HRC cease their bitter and unsupported characterizations of FRC as a hate group, akin to the Ku Klux Klan, the Arian Nation, and similar groups that espouse evil and violence, which FRC denounces. This language is meant to inflame not inspire, to intimidate and not to illuminate. It is to poison and not to persuade. This type of incendiary rhetoric seeks to marginalize and silence people of Orthodox Christian faith, and it fosters an environment of violence, and it’s wrong and it needs to stop.
Then, amazingly, Perkins said:
It is time for the vindictiveness to end and I say with confidence to the SPLC and HRC it is time to dial down your demonization of those who differ with you, time to stop hurling labels of hate and have a legitimate debate about policies that govern our nation.
(For an glimpse into the Family Research Council’s demonization of those who differ with them, and hurling labels of hate, visit here and here and here and here and here and here.)
What would he do if one of his children told him they were gay?, a reporter asked. “I would not disown my children for anything, but let me say this,” Perkins told the reporter at the National Press Club, in an event streamed live by C-SPAN. “I believe that as a parent that I have a responsibility for the environment in which I raise my children. And I believe as a parent, we have the ability to protect them from a lot of unfortunate experiences that have shaping influences upon their lives.”
We can do our very best job as a parent and still something may happen, whether they end up in drugs or whether they end up in some other lifestyle that they end up in… They’re our children. We’ll always love them, but we don’t necessarily condone what they do. And if we really love them, we’ll be wiling to tell them the truth that the choices that they have made to continue in what they are doing are both destructive to them personally and to society as a whole.
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Radical right wing politicians were in attendance at the presser, including U.S. Congressman Louie Gohmert, perhaps best known for his “terror babies” conspiracy theory.
You can watch the event in its entirety, below, and also watch:
Reporter Asks Tony Perkins: Why Do You Focus On Homosexuality When Bible Doesn’t
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/assets/swf/CSPANPlayer.swf?pid=308121-1
Related:
Homosexuality: How Much Difference Lies Between US Anti-Gay Groups And Iran?
Values Voters Summit: Does Family Research Council Just Fib About Who’s Speaking?
Tony Perkins: My Friend, Patriot Todd Akin Will Speak At Values Voters Summit
Read: Human Rights Groups Ask Paul Ryan To Not Attend Hate Group Conference
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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
