From Faith in Public Life:
On Feb. 14th in New York, Faithful America members and faith leaders including Bishop Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, gathered at MSNBC studios to deliver 20,000 signatures calling on the network to stop inviting hate group leader Tony Perkins onto their news programming.
MSNBC sent down representatives to accept the petitions but remained non-committal about their willingness to change their policy.
The above video is of their delivery combined with footage of Perkins on MSNBC.
I like what these folks did and I salute their efforts.
But I'm also going to be honest.
I feel a little reticent about news networks banning Tony Perkins on their shows. I hate for him to play the martyr. "Oh they are banning me because they don't want any discussion on homosexuality," Perkins would say. "Oh those intolerant homosexuals."
It is a sad truth that the news media treats Perkins like a legitimate source, regardless of the myriad of things his organization, the Family Research Council, has done to denigrate the lgbtq community. FRC has relied on junk science, cherry-picked studies, or out-and-out lies to demonize us. It is also a sad truth that very few in the media have questioned him on these things
When they do address it, they ask him general questions and allow him to go on a monologue about his supposed Christian values.
What we need is a 60 Minutes type investigation or a huge magazine expose on the Family Research Council and other groups like it. There needs to be a huge amount of detail as to how these groups pick their so-called experts, how they cherry-pick studies, and their tendency to rely on junk science. There also needs to be some exposure as to how deeply affiliated some members of Congress are to these groups.
And I have said this more than once - I can't believe that the lgbtq community have several magazines and our own network, but none of these entities, at least to my knowledge, have decided to undertake this initiative.
No matter how many petitions we hand in or how loud we gripe, FRC and groups like it will continue to get away with their phony veneer or respectability until WE rip it away.
And frankly we have not begun to do it yet.
Related post: 16 reasons why the Family Research Council is a hate group
2 comments:
What you are doing has a very important place in equality. I respect and admire you for it. You are right that there are many gaps in educating the public, and each person has a role. Thank you for what you do.
The problem is that in the U.S. right now, too many people tolerate hate and intolerance. Too many people accept, when not condoning outright, hateful behaviors that really have no place in a civilized society. As long as we keep silent about these behaviors, the haters will continue to hate, they will grow in numbers and attacks against LGBT will continue to be the norm, people will continue to be fired for being who they are, and people will continue to treat Perkins, Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown as legitimate source of information.
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