SPLC's report on anti-gay hate groups needs wider audience. Provide it.

Tony Perkins

The Southern Poverty Law Center has come out with a stunning report on the anti-gay stances of the Family Research Council and the American Family Assocation. Part of it reads as follows:

 The Family Research Council -

The Family Research Council (FRC) bills itself as “the leading voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,” but its real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians. The FRC often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to denigrate LGBT people in its battles against same-sex marriage, hate crimes laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

To make the case that the LGBT community is a threat to American society, FRC employs a number of “policy experts” whose “research” has allowed FRC to be extremely active politically in shaping public debate. Its research fellows and leaders often testify before Congress and appear in the mainstream media. It also works at the grassroots level, conducting outreach to pastors in an effort to “transform the culture.”

In Its Own Words
“Gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement.”
— Robert Knight, FRC director of cultural studies, and Frank York, 1999

“[Homosexuality] … embodies a deep-seated hatred against true religion.”
— Steven Schwalm, FRC senior writer and analyst, in “Desecrating Corpus Christi,” 1999

“One of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets of a new sexual order.’”
--1999 FRC pamphlet, Homosexual Activists Work to Normalize Sex with Boys.

“[T]he evidence indicates that disproportionate numbers of gay men seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners.”
— Timothy Dailey, senior research fellow, “Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse,” 2002

“While activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two. … It is a homosexual problem.”
— FRC President Tony Perkins, FRC website, 2010

Bryan Fischer

The American Family Association -

Initially founded as the National Federation for Decency, the American Family Association (AFA) originally focused on what it considered indecent television programming and pornography. The AFA says it promotes "traditional moral values" in media. A large part of that work involves "combating the homosexual agenda" through various means, including publicizing companies that have pro-gay policies and organizing boycotts against them. The AFA has a variety of outlets to disseminate its message, including American Family Radio Network, its online One News Now and the monthly AFA Journal. In early 2011, the AFA claimed more than 2 million online supporters and 180,000 subscribers to its Journal.

In Its Own Words
"[T]he homosexual lifestyle is characterized by anonymous sexual encounters and celebration of sexual obsession and perversion unparalleled in any other social group."
– Richard Howe, "Homosexuality in America," AFA publication, 1994

"As with smoking, homosexual behavior's ‘second hand' effects threaten public health… .Thus, individuals who choose to engage in homosexual behavior threaten not only their own lives, but the lives of the general population."
– Gary Glenn, president of Michigan chapter of AFA, 2001

"Homosexuality is not only harmful to homosexuals themselves, but also to children and to society."
– Stephen Bennett, AFA writer, 2004

"If President Obama, Congressional Democrats, and homosexual activists get their wish, your son or daughter may be forced to share military showers and barracks with active and open homosexuals who may very well view them with sexual interest."
– AFA press release, February 2010

"The homosexual movement is a progressive outgrowth of the sexual revolution of the past 40 years and will lead to the normalization of even more deviant behavior."
– Don Wildmon, AFA website, 1999 (still posted as of 2011).

"Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews."
– Bryan Fischer, AFA director of issue analysis for government and public policy, 2010

It would be in the gay community's best interest if more folks read this report and referred it to their friends and neighbors.

In a weekend in which we saw Republican presidential candidates flock to these two groups like they pushing manna and a leader of one of these groups (Tony Perkins of FRC) presented as a legitimate election analyst,  this report needs to be pushed hard.

And we need to be the ones who push it. It's simply not enough to say that SPLC has named these organizations as hate groups. We need to provide a copy of this report to everyone we can.

A copy of the full SPLC report is here (PDF).

Hat tip to LGBTQ Nation.