The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization dedicated to combatting anti-Semitism, condemned Family Research Council (FRC) president and regular Fox News and CNN guest Tony Perkins for his “deeply offensive” comments comparing LGBT non-discrimination protections with the Holocaust.
On June 6, Perkins blasted a Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruling finding that a baker had violated the state's anti-discrimination law by refusing to bake a cake for a gay couple, asking on his radio program Washington Watch, “I'm beginning to think, are re-education camps next? When are they going to start rolling out the boxcars to start hauling off Christians?” Perkins' remarks echoed his statement in April that the LGBT movement "reminds me of Nazi Germany."
In a June 10 statement, ADL President Abraham Foxman denounced Perkins' comments, calling them “offensive and inappropriate”:
Tony Perkins' invocation of the Holocaust in his statement referring to a judge's finding that a baker unlawfully discriminated against gay customers is offensive and inappropriate.
There is no comparison between contemporary American political issues and the actions of Hitler's regime during the Holocaust. Such inappropriate analogies only serve to trivialize the Holocaust and are deeply offensive to Jews and other survivors, as well as those Americans who fought valiantly against the Nazis in World War II.
We urge Perkins to apologize and to refrain from using Holocaust imagery to make his point.
Extreme anti-LGBT rhetoric has defined Perkins' career, and the FRC's defamatory attacks on the LGBT community led the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to designate it an anti-gay hate group in 2010.
Despite that record, Perkins and FRC are frequent fixtures on CNN and Fox News. Fox's Megyn Kelly in particular has given Perkins the star treatment, inviting him onto The Kelly File to attack basic non-discrimination policies and to champion anti-LGBT business discrimination.
Given his reputation, Perkins isn't likely to take the ADL's advice to heart. But media outlets might want to reconsider whether it's wise to provide him a forum to continue peddling his apoplectic attacks on LGBT equality.