Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr
According to an LAPolitics report, right-wing activist and former Louisiana state representative Tony Perkins is considering running for Congress in Louisiana’s 6th District, a seat that is currently held by Rep. Bill Cassidy (R).
Even by the far right-wing standards of this House of Representatives, Perkins — who is best known as the president of the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has classified as an anti-gay hate group — is too extreme to serve as a representative in the people’s House.
Here are five reasons why Tony Perkins is unfit for Congress.
Bought A Mailing List From The KKK
In 1996, while serving as the campaign manager for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Woody Jenkins, Perkins paid $82,500 to former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke for his mailing list. The Federal Election Commission would later fine Jenkins’ campaign $3,000 for attempting to hide the transaction.
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Addressed A Hate Group In Front Of A Confederate Flag
In 2001, Perkins delivered a speech to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a hate group that considers African-Americans to be “a retrograde species of humanity.”
Perkins would later claim that he was unaware of the group’s racist ideology — which is rather hard to believe, considering that he delivered the speech in front of a Confederate flag:
Slammed Anti-Bullying Campaign As “Disgusting,” “Immoral”
Most of Perkins’ career at the Family Research Council has been devoted to spreading anti-LGBT propaganda. Among the most egregious examples came in 2011, when Perkins signed a fundraising letter ripping the Obama administration for supporting the “It Gets Better” project, which encourages people to speak out against the bullying of LGBT teens.
After describing the campaign as “aimed at persuading kids that although they’ll face struggles and perhaps bullying for ‘coming out’ as homosexual (or transgendered or some other perversion), life will get better,” Perkins labeled the effort “disgusting” and “part of a concerted effort…to recruit [children] into that ‘lifestyle.'”
“Can you imagine George Washington, Ronald Reagan, or any other president telling children that it’s okay to be immoral and that they’ll eventually feel better about it?” Perkins asked.
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Defended Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill
In perhaps his most offensive anti-gay crusade, in 2010 Perkins spoke out in favor of Uganda’s infamous “kill the gays bill,” which would make being gay punishable by life in prison, and allow the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.”
Perkins argued that the egregious human rights violation was actually an effort to “uphold moral conduct that protects others and in particular the most vulnerable.”
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Spreads Outrageous Conspiracy Theories
Perkins has proven himself to be very willing to push some conspiracy theories so ridiculousthey would make would-be colleagues like Louie Gohmert and Michele Bachmann blush. Among countless other examples, Perkins and the Family Research Council have warned that the government promotes same-sex marriage as part of a population control plot, that the Obama administration plans to ban anyone identified as an “evangelical, Bible-believing fundamentalist” from purchasing firearms, and that ACORN will use the Affordable Care Act to commit voter fraud (despite no longer existing).
Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr
