ABC News Boots Hate Leader Tony Perkins From Sunday Show So MSNBC Invites Him

MSNBC Should Be Ashamed for Giving a Platform to an Anti-LGBT Hate Group Leader

ABC News announced earlier this week that Family Research Council president Tony Perkins would be George Stephanopoulos’  guest on Sunday’s “This Week” to discuss the Orlando mass shooting anti-LGBT hate crime terror attack. After pushback on social media and a petition by Faithful America that received over 28,000 signatures in just two days, ABC apparently got the message and revoked its invitation. Tony Perkins did not appear on “This Week.”

But Tony Perkins managed to appear on another major network, MSNBC, early Sunday afternoon, as he happily tweeted at the last minute:

Perkins, for those unfamiliar with his background, runs a D.C. nonprofit whose primary mission is to spread falsehoods and negative information about the LGBT community, demonize homosexuality and LGBT people, and lobby congress to advance its anti-LGBT agenda, all under the false claim of being good Christians.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has added Perkins’ FRC to its list of active anti-gay hate groups – not, as Perkins claims, because the SPLC disagrees with FRC’s beliefs supporting “traditional marriage” – but because it spreads lies about LGBT people and the LGBT community.

ThinkProgress’ Zack Ford, noting ABC News had quietly booted Perkins from Sunday’s lineup, shared this important analogy:

Author Laura Bethany Taylor, a transgender woman who writes about her “tired but persistent faith in God through Jesus Christ,” also penned an open letter castigating ABC and host George Stephanopoulos for offering a slot to Perkins. “How tolerant would the national media be of a KKK leader speaking on a massacre of African Americans?” she wrote. “What sort of outcry would we hear if anti-military pacifists were given center stage on Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day as we seek to honor our service men and women?” Incidentally, Perkins actually has numerous documented ties to white supremacist groups like the KKK.

Perkins spent a few minutes on MSNBC just after 1 PM EDT, speaking with anchor Alex Witt, but not about the Orlando massacre. Perkins was on to discuss the evangelical response to Donald Trump. He reminded viewers that he is on the Republican Party’s national platform committee, and in fact is responsible for its last plank on marriage and LGBT people – no doubt he’ll be tasked to lead that effort again.

The interview was short. Witt did not tell her viewers that Perkins is the head of an anti-LGBT hate group, but she cordially noted that he will be back on MSNBC in the future.

Earlier this month, Mississippi Republican Gov. Phil Bryant, accepting an award from Tony Perkins and the FRC for signing a sweeping anti-LGBT “religious freedom bill,” told the audience he is willing to die on the cross to support discrimination against LGBT people.

Last month, Perkins demanded President Barack Obama’s impeachment over his administration’s guidance for protecting transgender students from discrimination.

Some responses via Twitter:

  

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Image by Danny Canvas via Twitter