Monday, August 20, 2018

Four times the Family Research Council falsely connected homosexuality and pedophilia

Statements like this from FRC president Tony Perkins have been absent during the latest Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.

In this recent and awful scandal regarding the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in Pennsylvania, one thing I am glad about is how silent the anti-LGBTQ evangelical right haVE been. That bunch is known for exploiting situations like this to push a  false connection between homosexuality and pedophilia. I'm not stupid enough to think that this is due to them not wanting to. They have done it in the past. Case in point is the Family Research Council. Below, I give four examples of FRC connecting homosexuality and pedophilia, even in light of the fact that researchers and science have said otherwise:

April 2010: Family Research Council accuses gays of pedophilia without any proof - In exploiting a Catholic Church molestation scandal in 2010, FRC head Tony Perkins cites the abstract of a 1988 study in order to blame gay men. But the abstract doesn't prove his point.

December 2010: FRC: Scientists Refuse to Accept Clear “Correlation Between Homosexuality and Pedophilia” - Without any proof to back up their claims, FRC president Tony Perkins and Senior Fellow Peter Sprigg charge that there is a correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia, but scientists refuse to accept it. I should point out that neither Perkins nor Sprigg have a background in science nor have either of them conducted any scientific studies of any type. 
February 2011: Family Research Council pulling the 'gay = promiscuous pedophiles' card to defend DOMA - This is an old tactic which a few religious right groups used in the past to demonize the LGBTQ community -  attacking the concept of marriage equality by citing studies having nothing to do with marriage equality. And what's worse, they would cherry pick the study they cite.  In this case, FRC  distorted a study on child molestation and another on casual gay relationships and HIV in the Netherlands.  
 February 2013: Perkins: ‘Ironic’ That Critics of Pedophilia in Catholic Church Want Boy Scouts to Lift Gay Ban - Again exploiting the scandal of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, FRC president Tony Perkins accuses gays of wanting to be involved in the Boy Scouts to have "influence" on "impressionable children."

What's probably different this time is FRC's nauseatingly cozy relationship with the Trump Administration. For fear of losing this relationship,  FRC is most likely downplaying any claims by the Southern Poverty Law Center that it's a hate group determined to undermine LGBTQ equality.  This means no succumbing to the temptation of exploiting a scandal to paint gay men as sexually abusive monsters.

That's all well and good, FRC. But you can't run away from your past.


Graphic of Tony Perkins taken from Gay Central Valley

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Enlightening article, but not shocking. Give them time... they'll spew their hatred as usual.

Unknown said...

Priests are supposedly heterosexual AND celibate. However, they have been very vocal opponents of gay MARRIAGE. These priests were not celibate AND they were pedophiles. Why isn't the Family Research Council commenting on these heterosexual pedophiles?