Megyn Kelly invited anti-LGBT hate group leader Tony Perkins to respond to the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of marriage equality. Kelly's insistence on inviting Perkins highlights the host's cozy relationship with the ardent anti-gay group.
In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court found that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the right of same-sex couples to marry. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy contended that “Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right.”
On the June 26 edition of her Fox News show, Megyn Kelly invited Family Research Council (FRC) president Tony Perkins to discuss the Court's ruling. Perkins claimed that the “freedom to live your life according to your beliefs” is at stake, specifically for Christians who oppose marriage equality. Perkins later stoked fears that “there will be an effort to force people to conform” by threatening religious institutions like colleges with the loss of their tax-exempt status, unless they fully embrace equality.
PERKINS: Religion is so entwined with who we are as a nation. I mean, that's why we have this nation; it was founded upon that freedom to believe, the freedom to live your life according to your beliefs. That's at stake here. And for Christians, for Evangelicals, those who follow the Bible, this is not an issue that can be negotiated away.
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PERKINS: This was going to be an issue for religious institutions like colleges and universities and other religious organizations. Not initally the churches. I think they'll leave them alone; they'll be the last they go after. But they'll take away the tax-exemption, the accreditation, they'll take away grants. There will be an effort to force people to conform. We're seeing it in the corporate world. We'll see it in government, we'll see it in the public square. But I'm just here to say, Megyn, that this is not going to go away. Just as Roe v. Wade did not solve the abortion issue, this is not going to solve the issue of what marriage is.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has billed Tony Perkin's FRC an anti-LGBT hate group whose “real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians.” Perkins has called pedophilia "a homosexual problem" and claimed that LGBT advocates target kids "to recruit them into that 'lifestyle.'"
Despite his extremism, Perkins has found a safe place in Kelly's show to spew his anti-gay rhetoric. As Media Matters documented, the hate group leader has appeared on The Kelly File more than any other Fox show combined over a two-year period.