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| Peter Sprigg |
In dealing with the fact that it is an
officially declared hate group, the Family Research Council pulls the shuck-and-jive argument that it is being attacked by people who don't want to debate gay issues. This following missive came in a recent email
The harms associated with homosexuality include serious physical and mental health problems. Pro-homosexual activists have begun to demand that no debate on the issue of homosexuality be permitted.
Of course we all know that this is a lie. The fact of the matter is that aside from appearing on friendly locations such as
Fox News, neither FRC's president, Tony Perkins, nor its spokesperson, Peter Sprigg, will put themselves in a situation to clearly debate FRC's stance on the gay community.
Of course we all remember what happened the last time Perkins went on a head-to-head debate on the issue. It was last year on
Hardball against the Southern Poverty Law Center's Mark Potok.
Close to the end of the show, Perkins cited research from a group which supposedly proved a connection between homosexuality and pedophilia. On a later show,
Hardball's host, Chris Matthews,
acknowledged that Perkins' citation wasn't exactly unbiased.
Since that time, it has been increasingly obvious that Perkins and Sprigg have avoided in depth discussions on FRC's claims about the gay community or the methods FRC uses to reach its conclusion about the gay community.
All the group has done was to whine that it is "being silenced" from the so-called intolerant gay community because it is merely standing up for traditional values.
Who knew that "traditional values" meant avoiding debate while whining about not being to have one?
The bottom line is that a lot of us want this debate. In fact, we look forward to it. I personally would like an answer to several of these questions:
1. What makes Peter Sprigg a policy expert when he clearly has no expertise in the issues he is talking about?
2. Why does the Family Research Council continue to pursue the false homosexuality/pedophilia connection even at the point of
distorting legitimate studies to make the claim?
3. Why did the Family Research Council
remove several anti-gay studies from its webpage claiming that the studies contained "outdated" material and then sneak them back on years later?
4. Why does the Family Research Council continue to distort
legitimate studies to attack the gay community such as the 1997 Oxford study on the supposed gay lifespan and the study done by Robert Garofalo on gay youth and negative behavior?
5. Why does Peter Sprigg
cherry-pick work from pro-gay sources to demonize the lgbtq entire community?
6. Why didn't the Family Research Council acknowledge that it
pushed a fraudulent video on GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network) and was forced to walk it back?
7. Why does the Family Research Council continue to cite the work of the discredited Paul Cameron, a junk scientist who claims, amongst other things, that gays stuff gerbils up their rectums ?
(FRC used Cameron's work in Homosexual Parenting - Placing Children at Risk - endnote 60 - one of the studies it removed from its webpage and then surreptitiously placed back - see question 3.)
Of course none of these questions will be answered because FRC really doesn't want a debate. If we were to have a debate, then the truth about FRC would come out.
And that plain truth is that the Family Research Council is a group deliberately exploiting people's values and fears in order to bear false witness against the gay community for political gain.
In other words, contrary to the organization's whine, the debate on gay issues is a debate FRC can't afford to have.
Related post:
16 reasons why the Family Research Council is a hate group
