Tony Perkins, President of the ultraconservative Christian group known as the Family Research Council (FRC), probably wishes he had slept in on Sunday instead of agreeing to appear on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Perkins was invited on the long-running Sunday news show to discuss the issue of same-sex marriage, which the Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments on this week. And it quickly became clear that “Face the Nation” host Bob?Schieffer was not going to pull his punches when it came to what the FRC truly represents. Schieffer told Perkins in the introduction:
?The Southern Poverty Law Center has branded the Family Research Council an anti-gay hate group. We have been inundated by people who say we should not even let you appear because they, in their view ? quote ? you don’t speak for Christians.?
Perkins, undaunted, launched into his usual diatribe against the Supreme Court even daring to take on the issue of same-sex marriage, saying that doing so, “does a disservice to both sides if the court weighs in on public policy like this.? Perkins then added:
?The courts are decided to interpret the Constitution and the constitutionality of laws, not to create public policy. When they do that, they create division and they erect barriers to reaching consensus on public policy like this. So no, we stand with millennia of experience that the union of a man and a woman ? the sacred union of marriage ? is the cornerstone of society.?
In other words, blah blah blah blah, and people we disagree with should not have any rights.
Schieffer immediately shot back with this:
?You said the other day ? and I believe you said this ? that if the court rules in favor of gay marriage, it would be open season on people of faith. I mean, how can you say that??
He can say it because he’s an extremist nutjob who is merely interested in raising money by spreading fear and attempting to divide the country even further on an issue which the high court has every right to hear and decide.
Perkins also got an earful from pro-equality activist Evan Wolfson of the group Freedom to Marry, who dismissed Perkins and the Family Research Council as the loose cannons they are:
?I would say that Tony Perkins is really an outlier. And what’s to be celebrated here is that the vast majority of Americans have opened their hearts and changed their mind and moved forward to embrace the freedom to marry. And the courts are following where that public opinion has gone.?
Perkins and ?the FRC may think that they represent Christians on this issue, but as a Christian myself, I can assure him they don’t speak for me or for the majority of people of faith in the United States.
Tony Perkins needs to read his Bible more closely and learn from these words of Jesus:
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”
