Dan Savage Takes Down Tony Perkins

I long for the day when Dan and this son of a bitch of Tony Perkins face to face in a court room. Dan would cut this bitch.

Dan Savage Responds To Hate Group Leader Tony Perkins

Via Slog:

The robustly heterosexual head of the Family Research Council went on Mike Huckabee’s radio show today to respond to my recent comments. Huckabee said I was rude and vile and unhappy—please, Rev. Girlfriend, I listen toGypsy when I’m at the gym (unhappy gay men listen to Passion at the gym)—and then it wasTony Perkins’ turn:

• As my teenagers would say, he has some issues. He is a man with some real deep-seated issues … and Dan Savage is nowhere near, he’s a hundred and eighty degrees from the positions that we have taken. It’s wrong and I will tell you this,we are pursuing everything possible to deal with him because he is out of control…. This is the bottom line, Mike: is that if you don’t embrace and celebrate homosexuality and everything associated with it, then you are intolerant. And the truth of the matter is, let’s just be very, very truthful, and that’s what we deal in is the truth, that even is society embraced homosexuality, there would never be that sense of self-fulfillment because it’s outside the way God created man and woman. And that’s the bottom line. They cannot erase that, even if they get every law on the books changed, it will never change that.

Yes, Tony, I have issues.I have issues with people who would deny me and other LGBT people our full civil equality for no legitimate reason. I have particular issues with high-profile haters who encourage parents to reject their LGBT kids, doubling their already quadrupled risk for suicide. I have issues with people who say that LGBT people are “pawns of the devil.” I have issues with people who compare LGBT people to terrorists. I have issues with people who falsely link homosexuality and pedophilia. I have issues with people who suggest that a law calling for the execution of gay people merely “upholds moral conduct.”But having issues with you, Tony, isn’t quite the same thing as “having issues.” Please make a note of it.And you didn’t address the actual issue I raised during your chat today with Huckabee. You and Mike called me names—because you were angry that I called you names?—but you didn’t address the issue. So here it is again:

• LGBT kids are four times greater risk of suicide. Tony Perkinsadvises the parents of LGBT kids to reject their children. LGBT kids who are rejected by their parents are at eight times greater risk of suicide. Perkins is aware of these studies and yet heactively encourages the parents of LGBT kids to do what Perkins knows will push those kids closer to suicide.

Sue me, Tony. I’d love to see you talk about my “issues” on a witness stand.I realize that this isn’t how you think the world is supposed to work, Tony. You believe—and you’re old enough to remember a time when—people like you were free to say vile and disgusting things people like me without anyone objecting. Certainly people like me weren’t allowed to call you out. You believe you should be free to lie about me and other LGBT people—we’re all pedophiles and terrorists and Satanists—and that we should have to sit down and shut up and take it because… well, I’m not sure why you think we’re not allowed to respond when you lie about us.Maybe that’s something we could get to the bottom of during the depositions.

“Moron Of The Week” Inductee & Hate Group Leader Tony Perkins Might Pursue Legal Action Against Dan Savage

Right Wing Watch reports:

Last week, Dan Savage set off a controversy when he declared that “every dead gay kid is a victory for the Family Research Council,” so it was no surprise that today Mike Huckabee invited FRC’s Tony Perkins on to his radio program to respond, allowing both men to spend most of the discussion voicing their outrage about his remarks, with Perkins even hinting that legal action might be taken:

• Huckabee: I found Dan Savage to be unnecessarily rude, vile, and angry. Just angry. He was not a happy person and he just takes out his venom on other people, but he’s gone to a level I’ve never seen.
• Perkins: As my teenagers would say, he has some issues. He is a man with some real deep-seated issues … and Dan Savage is nowhere near, he’s a hundred and eighty degrees from the positions that we have taken. It’s wrong and I will tell you this, we are pursuing everything possible to deal with him because he is out of control.

Perkins then went on to attack gay activists in general, declaring that they will always feel empty inside because they are “outside the way God created” them: 

• This is the bottom line, Mike: is that if you don’t embrace and celebrate homosexuality and everything associated with it, then you are intolerant. And the truth of the matter is, let’s just be very, very truthful, and that’s what we deal in is the truth, that even is society embraced homosexuality, there would never be that sense of self-fulfillment because it’s outside the way God created man and woman. And that’s the bottom line. They cannot erase that, even if they get every law on the books changed, it will never change that.

Dan Savage: “Tony Perkins Sits On A Pile Of Gay Kids Everyday”

I just love Dan. He tells shit like it is. Straight forward. Love him.

“Moron Of The Week” Rick “Frothy Mix” Santorum At FRC Hate Fest: We’llNever Have The Smart People On Our Side

First thing he ever says that is accurate.

“Moron Of The Week” Inductee Mitt “Magic Underpants” Romney’s Message To FRC’s Hate Fest

SPLC Defends FRC’s Hate Group Status On Bill O’Reilly

Audio: Tony Perkins Claims Heinous Uganda’s “Kill The Gays” Bill Upholds Moral Conduct

Traditional Values Coalition: FRC Shooter Was Carrying Our Address When Arrested

Joe.My.God. reports:

The head of the Traditional Values Coalition, an anti-gay group that is equally as vile as the FRC, is claiming that shooter Floyd Corkins was arrested while carrying their address.

“Clearly we need added protection after this. My understanding is we were the next target,” says Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition. Traditional Values Coalition is located in the 100 block of C Street in southeast D.C. “It is frightening to be, to know that you are probably the next person on the list to be shot,” Lafferty says. “I am concerned for my staff.”

NPR has more on Lafferty’s claim:

Traditional Values Coalition President Andrea Lafferty said FBI agents visited her group’s Capitol Hill offices hours after the Wednesday morning shooting as part of their investigation. The next day, she said, members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force came by and confirmed that “our information was in his pocket,” including the location of the group’s offices. “I was stunned,” Lafferty told The Associated Press, adding that she believes her group may have been targeted. It wasn’t immediately clear if that was the case. An FBI representative could not be immediately reached for comment late Friday.

As Lafferty notes in the NPR article, her group has been on the SPLC’s hate list for much longer than the FRC, which was added in 2010. Lafferty claims she’s gotten no response to requests for federal protection: “Under this Justice Department, Christians are a very low priority on their lists of concerns.”

RELATED: The SPLC provides some background on Lafferty and the group’s founder, her father Lou Sheldon.

The group has at times enjoyed remarkable access to the halls of power — during the George W. Bush Administration, Sheldon and Lafferty visited the White House a combined 69 times, meeting personally with Bush in eight of the visits. But that does not mean that it has not long had a record of extreme gay-bashing. In 1985, Sheldon suggested forcing AIDS victims into “cities of refuge.” In 1992, columnist Jimmy Breslin said that Sheldon told him that “homosexuals are dangerous. They proselytize. They come to the door, and if your son answers and nobody is there to stop it, they grab the son and run off with him. They steal him. They take him away and turn him into a homosexual.” Sheldon later denied that he made the comments, but his website today includes strikingly similar language: “[S]ince homosexuals can’t reproduce, they will simply go after your children for seduction and conversion to homosexuality.” Elsewhere, it claims that “[t]he effort to push adult/child sex … is part of the overall homosexual movement.”

Last year the Traditional Values Coalition claimed that the passage of the federal Hate Crimes Act had literally outlawed Christianity in the United States. They then sent fundraising flyers to horrified seniors and raised buckets of money on that ridiculous lie.

The Southern Poverty Center Condemns Hate Group’s Head (Family Research Council) Tony Perkins

From SPLC Senior Fellow Mark Potak, via press release and posted publicly to the Southern Poverty Law Center website:

Yesterday’s attack on the Family Research Council and the shooting of a security guard there was a tragedy. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) deplores all violence, and our thoughts are with the wounded victim, Leo Johnson, his family and others who lived through the attack.

For more than 40 years, the SPLC has battled against political extremism and political violence. We have argued consistently that violence is no answer to problems in a democratic society, and we have strongly criticized all those who endorse such violence, whether on the political left or the political right.

But this afternoon, FRC President Tony Perkins attacked the SPLC, saying it had encouraged and enabled the attack by labeling the FRC a “hate group.” The attacker, Floyd Corkins, “was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Perkins said. “I believe the Southern Poverty Law Center should be held accountable for their reckless use of terminology.”

Perkins’ accusation is outrageous. The SPLC has listed the FRC as a hate group since 2010 because it has knowingly spread false and denigrating propaganda about LGBT people — not, as some claim, because it opposes same-sex marriage. The FRC and its allies on the religious right are saying, in effect, that offering legitimate and fact-based criticism in a democratic society is tantamount to suggesting that the objects of criticism should be the targets of criminal violence.

As the SPLC made clear at the time and in hundreds of subsequent statements and press interviews, we criticize the FRC for claiming, in Perkins’ words, that pedophilia is “a homosexual problem” — an utter falsehood, as every relevant scientific authority has stated. An FRC official has said he wanted to “export homosexuals from the United States.” The same official advocated the criminalizing of homosexuality.

Perkins and his allies, seeing an opportunity to score points, are using the attack on their offices to pose a false equivalency between the SPLC’s criticisms of the FRC and the FRC’s criticisms of LGBT people. The FRC routinely pushes out demonizing claims that gay people are child molesters and worse — claims that are provably false. It should stop the demonization and affirm the dignity of all people.

Via GLAAD:

Joint statement regarding shooting at Family Research Council (FRC) from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organizations
We were saddened to hear news of the shooting this morning at the offices of the Family Research Council. Our hearts go out to the shooting victim, his family, and his co-workers.
The motivation and circumstances behind today’s tragedy are still unknown, but regardless of what emerges as the reason for this shooting, we utterly reject and condemn such violence.  We wish for a swift and complete recovery for the victim of this terrible incident.

Michael Adams
Executive Director, Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE)

Tico Almeida
President, Freedom to Work

Katie Belanger
Executive Director, Fair Wisconsin

Wayne Besen
Founding Executive Director, Truth Wins Out

A.J. Bockelman
Executive Director, PROMO
Sharon Brackett
Board Chair, Gender Rights Maryland
Carly Burton
Deputy Director, MassEquality

Dr. Eliza Byard
Executive Director, Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN)

Jennifer Chrisler
Executive Director, Family Equality Council

Brad Clark
Executive Director, One Colorado

R. Clarke Cooper
Executive Director, Log Cabin Republicans

Dwayne Crenshaw
Executive Director, San Diego LGBT Pride

Heather Cronk
Managing Director, GetEQUAL

Jerame Davis
Executive Director, National Stonewall Democrats

Emily Dievendorf
Director of Policy, Equality Michigan

James Esseks
Director, ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project

Lynn A. Faria
Interim Executive Director, Empire State Pride Agenda

Jenna Frazzini
Executive Director, Basic Rights Oregon

Herndon Graddick
President, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)

Chad Griffin
President, Human Rights Campaign (HRC)

Jody M. Huckaby
Executive Director, PFLAG National (Parents, Families, Friends of Lesbians and Gays)

Mara Keisling
Executive Director, National Center of Transgender Equality

Kate Kendell
Executive Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR)

Abbe Land
Executive Director & CEO, The Trevor Project

Gregory Lewis
Executive Director, True Colors Fund

Ineke Mushovic
Executive Director, Movement Advancement Project

National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs

Darlene Nipper
Deputy Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Donna Red Wing
Executive Director, One Iowa

Aubrey Sarvis
Executive Director, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network

Josh Seefried
Co-Director, OutServe

Brian Silva
Executive Director, Marriage Equality USA

Lee Swislow
Executive Director, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders

Rachel B. Tiven, Esq.
Executive Director, Immigration Equality

Chuck Wolfe
President & CEO, Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and Institute

Evan Wolfson
President, Freedom to Marry

I, too, endorse this statement.

WASHINGTON D. C.: Shooting At Hate Group’s Headquarters, Family Research Council

ABC News reports:

A security guard at a conservative Christian lobbying group housed in a busy downtown Washington office building was shot and injured late Wednesday morning, police say.
The shooting took place either near or at the offices of the Family Research Council, which is located at 801 G Street, about a block west of the Verizon Center.
The guard, who was shot in the arm, was conscious and breathing after the incident. A suspect, who ABC 7’s Jennifer Donelan reports was led out of the building in handcuffs, is in custody.
In a statement posted to their website, FRC President Tony Perkins said one of the victims worked with the organization.
“The police are investigating this incident,” Perkins said in a statement. “Our first concern is with our colleague who was shot today. Our concern is for him and his family.”
The Associated Press identifies the FRC as a “conservative Christian lobbying group.” On its website, the group says it advocates “faith, family and freedom in public policy and public opinion.”
Authorities have closed the 800 block of G Street NW in both directions while the investigation continues. Donelan reports that FBI officials are on the scene.

UPDATE: Fox News (personally I don’t believe this claim, but we’ll see) is reporting that the shooter denounced the FRC before firing.

The suspect “made statements regarding their policies, and then opened fire with a gun striking a security guard,” a source told Fox News. Authorities were treating the attack as a case of domestic terrorism. The FRC is a conservative nonprofit that seeks to advance “faith, family and freedom in public policy and public opinion,” according to its website. The group weighs in on policy, and has often sent representatives to Congress to weigh in on the social effects of policy matters.

RELATED: “Moron Of The Week” Inductee Bryan Fischer blames The Southern Poverty Law Center for the shooting:

If SPLC is right, that using irresponsible language re: homosexuality causes violence, then they to blame for FRC shooting.

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) August 15, 2012

RELATED: The Southern Poverty Law Center made the following statement on their website:

We’ve seen news of the shooting of a security guard today at the Family Research Council office in Washington, D.C., and are getting media inquiries about it. There are unconfirmed reports that the shooting was ideologically motivated. We condemn all acts of violence and are following the story closely.

Hate Group FRC Leader Tony Perkins Launches Prayer Rally Against Gays, Asks Americans To Be On Their Knees

Here’s in a nutshell what they’re asking people to pray for:

May the President realize that he is an example and that his actions have an impact for good or for evil! May God wash our nation of the moral dullness and spiritual filth that is covering us as a result of this misguided, evil proclamation! May the Boy Scouts continue to resist pressure to yield to this ungodly agenda (Ps 51:6-7; Is 1:16-20; Jer 2:19-3:15; 4:14; Acts 22:16; Jude 7).

May America become fully acquainted with ENDA and its ominous consequences, and may they demand that their Congressmen and Senators reject it! (Ex 18:21-22a; Pr 28:4; Is 5:20; 59:15; 2 Th 2:7-12)

May the Lord lead each Justice to uphold DOMA and the right of the voters to amend their constitution to uphold marriage as between a man and woman! (Ex 18:20; Dt 16:18-19; Pr 28:4; Lk 12:11-12; Jn 7:24; 1 Tim 2:1-8)

Chris Matthews & Barney Frank Bitchslap Beautifully FRC’s Tony Perkins

Aw! This is bitchslaping heaven!