Family Research Council Speech Fosters Family Breakdown

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins on Wednesday advised parents of gay people to take steps to isolate, shame, and control the gay family member (whether they are young or adult) and to manipulate the family member with an obstinate and conditional form of “love.”

FRC also burdened parents with a guilt trip, accusing some of them of making their children gay.

Curiously, FRC’s advice focused solely upon what not to do. FRC offered no guidance on what families should do, other than blame themselves and condemn household members to a life of isolation, exclusion, celibacy, and guilt.

According to The Washington Blade, FRC advised parents to take the following steps:

• Do not “condone and enable” sexual behavior but rather — what exactly? Disable the family member? Cut them off from relationship for life? FRC appeared reluctant to state any alternative.
• Pray “for” the family member — not “with” the family member as an equal.
• Dictate FRC’s disproven and debilitating prejudices as if they are “the truth.” Shut out facts that are shared by the family member and proven by experts in sexuality, psychiatry, and religion.
• Compare the family member’s sexual honesty and authenticity to drug abuse.
• “We can’t guarantee” that parents are to blame, FRC said, but parents are imperfect and we have to blame someone.

Perkins conceded that parents should not “disown” their children, but the steps that he outlined or implied — defame the family member, ostracize any partner, elevate oneself spiritually at another’s expense, and shut out the facts, all in the name of “love” and “values” — accomplish similar objectives with less integrity.

During his appearance at the National Press Club luncheon, Perkins seemed to insinuate that — contrary to initial police and FBI findings — a shooting at FRC headquarters was part of some broad conspiracy. Perkins did so when he claimed that FRC employees prayed for the alleged perpetrator “as well as others involved,” according to the Washington Blade.

During the course of his speech, Perkins managed to demonize parents, children, Washington’s gay community — and the respected watchdog organizations that hold him accountable for a decades-long campaign of malicious falsehoods.