Tony Perkins is threatening a possible third party if the GOP abandons its evangelical base and supports same-sex marriage — which latest polls show almost six in ten Americans already do.
Perkins is the head of the anti-gay hate group, Family Research Council. His predecessor, Gary Bauer (FRC was not certified as a hate group under Bauer) today threatened the same at the National Organization For Marriage‘s anti-gay hate rally:
“Let me say to my party: if you bail out on this issue, I will leave the party and I will take as many people with me as I possibly can.”
In a press release, Perkins last week wrote:
If the RNC abandons marriage, evangelicals will either sit the elections out completely–or move to create a third party. Either option puts Republicans on the path to a permanent minority.
Interpreting the RNC’s “autopsy†released last week far differently than most, Perkins added:
“It looks like Democrats won’t need to spend a lot of money building a case against the GOP – because the Republican Party is doing it for them! In what the RNC is calling its ‘autopsy’ report from the last election, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has decided that the way for his party to win over voters is to parrot the Left’s policies. The grand strategy, which calls for throwing the party’s social conservatives overboard, demands the GOP be more ‘welcoming’ and ‘inclusive’ to people that are actively working against the conservative principles in the Republican platform. ‘We need to campaign among … gay Americans and demonstrate that we care about them too.’
Evangelical and former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee last week also threatened the GOP. Warning that if they support same-sex marriage, evangelicals will form a third party, Huckabee said that “they’re going to lose a large part of their base because evangelicals will take a walk.”
Perkins, 49, and a Southern Baptist evangelical, is highly ambitious and has amassed a veritable media empire — both as head of the Family Research Council and as a frequent guest on all the cable news channels.
He also has a fair amount of elected office experience, having served two terms in the Louisiana House. In 2002, Perkins challenged incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu for her U.S. Senate seat, but lost by a significant margin.
Last year, as The New Civil Rights Movement reported, Tom McClusky, a vice president of the Family Research Council (FRC) said that America’s third party will not be conservative or liberal, rather, it will stand for opposing same-sex marriage as its singular focus, should marriage equality continue to be adopted by states.
Editor’s note: Portions of this story appeared in an earlier article.