TODD PIRO (HOST): Five people are dead, 21 others injured including three law enforcement officers after a traffic stop on a West Texas highway sparks a drive-by shooting rampage. Joining us now, Southern Baptist pastor and former police officer Tony Perkins, also the president of the Family Research Council. Tony, as always, a pleasure to have you. First I want to get your thoughts on the shooting in Texas.
TONY PERKINS (FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL): Well, the words have been used far too frequently and are beginning to lose their meaning, but it's tragic. And at some point, we have to realize that as a nation we have a problem. And the problem is not the absence of laws, it's an absence of morality. Really the result of a decades-long march through the institutions of America driving religion and God from the public square.
PIRO: Let's get into a little bit more on that. You have a new op-ed out sort of going into this topic on trying to end gun violence. What do we need to do as a country?
PERKINS: Well, Todd, I'm willing -- as a former police officer and an ardent supporter of the Second Amendment -- I'm willing to sit down with the left who say, “I don't want to hear anymore about your prayers.” Well, I agree. Praying alone is not enough. It's time to act. And it's not just about having a conversation about restricting those who should not have guns, criminals, but it's also a discussion of the absence of a moral core in our culture today. I mean look, we've taught our kids that they are a chance -- they come about by chance through primordial slime and then we're surprised that they treat their fellow Americans like dirt. It's time we talk about the result of the left’s systematic march through our institutions driving religious expression from the public square. I think we have to go back to the point where we instill in these children, at least give them the opportunity to know that they're created in the image of God, therefore they have inherent value. As the first president of the United States said, don't think that we can have morality without religion. We've driven religion from our public life and we're shocked that we no longer have morality and we no longer value human life.
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PIRO: Mr. Perkins, we saw that recent study that showed the difference between just 1998 and this year with regard to how important religion is in our lives. With that as the backdrop, I ask you, is this problem, does this problem have any chance of getting better if religion is increasingly leaving our society here in America?
PERKINS: Todd, that's a great point. And that Wall Street Journal survey that you point to does point to the fact that for several decades we've had the left making the systematic march through our institutions, mostly of education, driving religion out of the public life. And not just driving it out but marginalizing it and stigmatizing it. That's why you see a precipitous drop in the value that is placed on religious expression, patriotism, and the family, having children. And I agree with Pastor Cory. We need to come together from the left and the right. Let's have a holistic conversation. Yes, I'll talk about keeping guns out of the hands of those criminals that should not have them, but I'm not just going to talk about restricting the instruments. We got to talk about the inspiration for violence. What is it? The void that is in the lives of these young men that are driving them to kill little children, innocent people. It's time America have a conversation about this. We cannot continue like this as a nation.
