Anti-Gay Hate Groups Are ‘Simply Fighting For Their Values’ Says Family Research Council
Family Research Council Teaming Up With Catholic League To Wage War On Southern Poverty Law Center And Gays
Since 2010 the Family Research Council has been included on the Southern Poverty Law Center‘s list of active anti-gay hate groups. The Family Research Council doesn’t particularly care for that designation. They erroneously blame the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate group” label for a shooting last year at their Washington, D.C. headquarters which left a guard/maintenance worker wounded in the arm. But that lone attack does not make the label of anti-gay hate group any less appropriate.
It is extremely appropriate.
LOOK:Â How Does The Discovery Channel Feel About Being Used By A Certified Hate Group?
Contrary to what the Family Research Council and other anti-gay hate groups like the American Family Association will tell you, the Southern Poverty Law Center doesn’t call them hate groups over a difference of opinion on social issues. The Southern Poverty Law Center labels these groups anti-gay hate groups because they have demonstrated over time a pattern of lying about gay people.
Case in point:
“Our principal concern is not with people who experience involuntarily same-sex attractions as much as it is with engaging in homosexual conduct, which we believe is harmful to the people who engage in it and to society at large.”
[Bolding ours]
That was the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg, on Tuesday, filling in for FRC President Tony Perkins on his daily radio show. (You can listen to it, and read Jeremy Hooper’s response over at Good As You, or listen to it and read Zack Ford’s response over at Think Progress.)
But to be fair to Sprigg, that rhetoric isn’t really representative of his comments about gay people. Usually, his words are filled with much more anti-gay hate.
Case in point:
February 3, 2010, on MSNBC’s “Hardball” with Chris Matthews:
Matthews: Let me ask you Peter, so you think people choose to be gay.
Sprigg: People do not choose to be have same sex attractions, but they do choose to engage in homosexual conduct. And that conduct also which incidentally is against the law within the military. It violates the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It doesn’t make any sense for us to be actively recruiting people who are going to violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Matthews: Do you think we should outlaw gay behavior?
Sprigg: Well I think certainly…
Matthews: I’m just asking you, should we outlaw gay behavior?
Sprigg: I think that the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas which overturned the sodomy laws in this country was wrongly decided. I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior.
Matthews: So we should outlaw gay behavior?
Sprigg: Yes.
Image posted by the Family Research Council to their Facebook page
Now, enter CNS News, a project of anti-gay extremist and Fox News contributor Brent Bozell III. Bozell III’s claim to fame includes his father — who in 1954 co-authored the book McCarthy and His Enemies, which defended the disgraced Senator Joe McCarthy, and which the New York Times called “a bald, dedicated apologia for ‘McCarthyism.'” Bozell III’s other claim to fame is his group of anti-left watchdog websites which are expert at twisting truth and logic into pretzels. And Bozell happens to sit on the Board of the Catholic League — more on that later.
LOOK: If Anyone Needs ENDA It’s Conservative Christians, Not Gays, Says Tony Perkins
Bozell’s CNS News Tuesday, in an interview with Southern Poverty Law Center co-founder Morris Dees, wrote that FRC shooter Floyd Lee Corkins “attempted a mass shooting on Aug. 15, 2012, opening fire at the Family Research Council and  wounding Security Guard Leo Johnson.”
Armed with more than 95 rounds of ammunition and 15 Chick-fil-a sandwiches, Corkins told the FBI that he chose the FRC as his first target after looking at a list of “anti-gay†groups on the SPLC’s website.
CNSNews.com questioned Dees about the Hate Map when he was in Washington, D.C.,  last week, asking whether his group has ever considered removing the FRC since the revelation from Corkins,” the gunman who shot the FRC guard.
“Well, first of all, having a group on our Hate Map doesn’t cause anybody to attack them anymore than they attacked us for one thing or another,†Dees said. “This group that says gay people—statements attributed to their people said that gay people caused the Holocaust. Demonstrably false things they say about gay people.
“It’s not on our Hate Map because they’re against gay people—and many, the Catholic Church is against people who are gay, so as others—it’s because of the demonstrably false things they say about people that are just total lies that demean gay people, they cause people to attack gay people,†he said.
“They claim that somebody attacks them because they say hateful things, think about how many gay people get bashed because these people say that gay men are pedophiles, which is demonstrably false,†Dees said.
Now, enter the infamous Bill Donohue, head of the (pretty much) one-man show, the Catholic League.
“In a statement to CNSNews.com, the Catholic League took umbrage with Dees’s remarks,” CNS writes:
“Morris Dees is a man in search of people and institutions to hate,†Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said. “Branding the Family Research Council a hate group is not only irresponsible, it trivializes the status of hate-ridden groups that have claimed real victims.â€
“Now Dees is casting the Catholic Church as the enemy by misstating its teachings,†he said. “Nothing the Catholic Church has ever said about the moral status of homosexuals—which is as irrelevant as the moral status of heterosexuals—could possibly be construed as hateful.â€
“Quite frankly, no amount of remedial education can help someone who can’t tell the difference between sexual orientation and sexual behavior,†Donohue said.
“Stupid or malicious, either way the guy [Dees] is a disgrace,†he said.
And now back to the Family Research Council.
“Our team is still dealing with the fallout of the attack, that was intended to have a chilling effect on organizations that are simply fighting for their values,” FRC Executive Vice President Genneral Jerry Boykin (ret.) told CNSNews.com:
“We are very disturbed that the Southern Poverty Law Center is now expanding its reckless attacks against the Catholic Church,” said Boykin. “The SPLC has made false and inaccurate claims against the Family Research Council for years.  The SPLC should fact check their own statements before making reckless accusations.”
“Hate labeling is dangerous enough but outright misrepresentation of the facts further increases the likelihood of an attack on an organization similar to FRC,” said the general.
“Simply fighting for their values”? Really?
It is shocking that int his day and age, with Google and YouTube, the Family Research Council actually thinks they are not an anti-gay hate group.
Because their “values” and their words make it quite clear they are.
And those who surround themselves with hate group leaders should remember the old adage about “the company you keep…”
Via an image posted by the Family Research Council to their Facebook page
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Image, top, via Family Research Council on Facebook
Related:
Guns Vs. Gays: Tony Perkins’ Extremely Dangerous Hypocrisy
Tony Perkins: Straight Felon Arrested During Seattle Pride Is A ‘Homosexual Activist’
Morally Straight? Hate Group Publishes Anti-Gay Ad Urging Boy Scouts To Vote Against Equality
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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
