Bigot Tony Perkins, who traffics in false science and skewed religious theory to promote the Family Research Council’s zealot agenda, keeps popping up when in the gay marriage debate. Last night, it was Anderson Cooper who gave him a platform. While Perkins maintains Jesus wouldn’t approve of any of this same-sex marriage stuff, luckily the Rev. Mel White, founder of Soulforce, called Perkins out for preaching hate: “They’re really saying things that are horrible and destructive.” Perkins can respond all he wants, but what White says is true: It’s this rhetoric that breaks up families, ruins people’s lives, and drives children to so hate themselves for how God made them, they surrender to their creator before their time. (Tune in around the 6:45 mark.)
Mr. Cooper
The Only Thing Tony Perkins Has to Say Is ‘Horrible and Destructive’
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rogue dandelion
oh anderson<3
I love how he was surprised someone actually flat out said tony was hateful and destructive. Thank you Rev. White!
Jerry Priori
“Jesus wouldn’t approve of any of this same-sex marriage stuff…”
I couldn’t care less what Jesus would or wouldn’t approve. If the myths are based on an actual historical person, he’s long dead and can neither approve nor disapprove of anything.
dgz
Rev. White had me until the end, when he said the bible says nothing about homosexuality. um, yes, it does. Jesus didn’t, true, but the bible calls us an abomination. (granted, the context is ridiculous, i.e. shrimp are an abomination, etc., but it’s indisputably there.)
Elijah
Ignoring Cooper’s personal cowardice for the moment (tho thanks for that screen capture of his equally phony “I’m Squinting & Knitting My Brows Really Seriously Now!” pose], THIS is the issue that our pseudo leaders should LONG ago have demanded change (and you touch upon):
There is NO excuse for these shows to PERPETUATE the lie that gay equality is a RELIGIOUS issue and, thus, keep providing platforms for theocratic thugs like Perkins.
They are CIVIL issues, but by elevating pseudo pious pricks like Perkins year after year after year Larry King & Cooper and “Face the Nation” and “Meet the Press” and ABC’s Sunday news show which was going to give Warren another opportunity to lie through his jowls last weekend, ad infintitum, are, out of the box, wrongly and unfairly and undemocratically AGREEING that they ARE religious issues, thus, reinforcing and sending the message to their viewers, “Respond to gays based soley on your ‘religious’ views,” AND that there should be no such thing as separation of Church & State.
Note the hysterical, fear-mongering, hate-mongering CNN-generated title under the cap and what it telegraphs:
(Gay equality is the) “End of Christian America.”
Yes, they do the same thing in relation to a woman’s right to choose, but you never see such shows about all the U.S. drug problems or murder rates or other crime rates—all regular pulpit subjects. In short, the Antigay Industry is as powerful as it is because mainstream media made them “stars”—and Cooper is willfully perpetuating that.
I can’t bear to watch the clip, but HOPE that Rev. White (where the hell was his clerical collar), who does do a lot of good when he’s not wasting his time trying to rewrite the Bible for the invincibly ignorant, did actually use the word “hateful.” That’s, historically, been our SECOND failure—after LEGITIMIZING the bigots by debating them—refusing to publicly call them out for the bigots they are and the harvest from the poisonous seeds they sow—not just legalizing our inequality but our literal deaths.
Paging GLAAD, HRC, NGLTF, and all of our other PAID defenders.
AJ
Oh, Leland.
Alex
Wow, two closeted gays and Mel White, that’s not something you see every…whoops. Uh, never mind.
Chuck
Irony of ironies- his parents named him after the gay film star.
What a total douche. And Anderson, uh, yeah, it’s just getting old. When you miss perfect opportunities like this to show that gay people can be productive, ‘normal’ members of society, (and you’ve got Vanderbilt money!), it’s kinda embarrassing and sad.
stevenelliot
Ahh Tony….Just think of all the millions of dollars you’ve made off the misery of gays! What would you be without us? Its your only issue. If you lose us. Damn. You may have to really work for a living
How much does this asshole make per year?? Can anybody tell us?
Tony
Anderson Cooper is disgusting. Journalists are supposed to be unbiased and he certainly can’t be on this issue. He is a failure as a gay man and as a credible journalist.
Alec
@Tony: I think Anderson Cooper has shown, repeatedly, that his style of journalism is not entirely “unbiased” or “objective,” beginning with my earliest memory, his coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Still, that doesn’t really distinguish him from anyone on MSNBC, CNN or, ugh, Fox.
Also, I’m not sure he’s really a failure as a gay man.
Chris
@tony — Would your last be Perkins by any chance?
TANK
People like Mel White prop up the Tony Perkins types in virtue of appealing to the same book for the legitimacy of his beliefs.
RR
Did you watch the clip?@Elijah:
Did you watch the clip? The discussion wasn’t supposed to be about gay marriage, the panelists just got carried away arguing about that one point of difference at the end after both Perkins and Mel acknowledged some clips Anderson introduced did indeed show Rick Warren lying about Rick’s prop 8 activities.
The “End of Christian America” title was about evangelical comments that they’d lost the culture war and Dobson stepping down from his movement, it wasn’t some sort of hate suggestion gay equality is ending Christianity. Dobson’s speech and the debate is about ALL the evangelical fundamentalist issues (abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage, etc) and the debate was about whether the fundamentalists have lost on those issues and whether the fundamentalist movement has shrunk down small.
greg
@Tony: You can say that about anything almost. “He can’t report in an unbiased way about tax policy because he’s rich”, “he can’t report unbiased about race issues because he’s white”, “he can’t do unbiased reporting about celebrities because he grew up surrounded by them”. Those sorts of things are unavoidable, they don’t make a journalist a failure. A journalist’s job is to put their own personal characteristics and political views to the side and present facts and different points of view fairly. Anderson does a perfectly fine job of that.
You might as well say straight people can’t do unbiased reporting on gay issues, and then I guess we’d have to find some asexual people somewhere to file the reports.
kevin (not that one)
White’s comment about the bible not containing anything about homosexuality was incorrect and I’m surprised he would say so.
It’s not whether the bible has anything to say or not, but rather how it’s interpreted. There is scant references to homosexuality in the bible, but it does exist; both in negative terms (prohibition against temple priests laying with temple prostitutes in Leviticus) and positive terms (David and Jonathan).
In the New Testament, there are only the references that come from Paul in Romans and Corinthians (in which he was condemning pagan practices) and the person who claims to be Paul in 1 Timothy.
White would’ve had a better argument if he had mentioned this but also mentioned that what social mores those who wrote the bible 2000 years ago aren’t what we share today.
For instance, slavery wasn’t the institution of evil in the bible that we view it as today. As society has changed, so has the Christian tradition to reflect that which we know now to be true. There are, of course, throwbacks…fundamentalists and the Vatican.
Elijah
@RR
Would that all of us were as brilliant as you to parse and preach and strain at the proverbial gnat while swallowing a camel…particularly all those Americans who keep voting our rights down, in part due to the homophobic ambulance story chasing of the mainstream media and high profile cowards like
Cooper telegraphing to his colleagues that being gay is something to be ashamed of.
PS: “Objectivity” is a mutually agreed upon and self-promoting myth by the media meisters.
geoff
Mr. Perkins, did Jesus himself tell you he’s against gay marriage? No, he didn’t. So kindly shut the fuck up and get a life.
BumbleBee
Tony Perkins? Where have I heard that name before? I know, he was the guy from “Psycho”, the nut who dressed in his mother’s clothes and slashed Janet Leigh. Tony/Anthony, it’s all the same bull.
Cam
I’m done with Anderson Cooper, I like CNN but I just can’t bother to watch him anymore. He has a chance to quietly make a difference and he isn’t above whoring out his brothers suicide in a book but won’t talk about his personal life because “Oh, I’m not the story”. Give me a break, he and Jodie Foster can fade into obscurity as far as I’m concerned.
Brianna
@Cam: I thought Jodie Foster was out? I can’t keep track anymore.
If we can have an out Rachel Maddow we can have an out Anderson Cooper.
Cam
@Brianna:
Brianna, Jodie foster, sort of flirted with it, but I mean she is a producer now so it isn’t as if being out is going to hurt her. Your point about Rachel Maddow is Right On The Money!!!