The reality is, homosexuals have entered the Scouts in the past for predatory purposes.”
– FRC vice president Rob Schwarzwalder, on radio’s “The Janet Mefferd Show,” Feb. 1, 2013.
“[H]omosexual activists vehemently reject the evidence which suggests that homosexual men … are … relative to their numbers, more likely to engage in such actions [childhood sexual abuse] than are heterosexual men.”
– Peter Sprigg, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at FRC, on why the Boy Scouts should not allow LGBT Scouts or leaders, FRC blog, February 1, 2013.
“The videos are titled 'It Gets Better.' They are aimed at persuading kids that although they'll face struggles and perhaps bullying for 'coming out' as homosexual (or transgendered or some other perversion), life will get better. …It's disgusting. And it's part of a concerted effort to persuade kids that homosexuality is okay and actually to recruit them into that lifestyle."
— Tony Perkins, FRC fundraising letter, August 2011
"Those who understand the homosexual community—the activists—they're very aggressive, they're—everything they accuse us of they are in triplicate. They're intolerant, they're hateful, vile, they're spiteful. .... To me, that is the height of hatred, to be silent when we know there are individuals that are engaged in activity, behavior, and an agenda that will destroy them and our nation."
— Tony Perkins, Speaking to the Oak Initiative Summit, April 2011
"We believe the evidence shows … that relative to the size of their population, homosexual men are more likely to engage in child sexual abuse than are heterosexual men."
— Peter Sprigg, "Debating Homosexuality: Understanding Two Views." 2011.
“While activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two. … It is a homosexual problem.”
— FRC President Tony Perkins, FRC website, 2010
“[W]elcoming open homosexuality in the military would clearly damage the readiness and effectiveness of the force – in part because it would increase the already serious problem of homosexual assault in the military.”
— Peter Sprigg, “Homosexual Assault in the Military," 2010
"A little-reported fact is that homosexual and lesbian relationships are far more violent than are traditional married households."
-- Timothy Dailey, FRC publication, "Homosexual Parenting: Placing Children at Risk," 2002
“Gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement.”
— Robert Knight, FRC director of cultural studies, and Frank York, 1999
“[Homosexuality] … embodies a deep-seated hatred against true religion.”
— Steven Schwalm, FRC senior writer and analyst, in “Desecrating Corpus Christi,” 1999
"One of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the 'prophets' of a new sexual order."
—1999 FRC publication, "Homosexual Behavior and Pedophilia," Robert Knight and Frank York
Background
The Family Research Council (FRC) emerged from a 1980 White House conference on families. James Dobson, founder of the religious right powerhouse Focus on the Family, met and prayed with a group of eight Christian leaders at a Washington hotel, leading ultimately to the creation of the FRC in 1983 under the initial direction of Gerald Regnier (formerly of the Department of Health and Human Services). The group became a division of Focus on the Family in 1988 under Gary Bauer, a religious right leader who would use his post as a launching pad for a failed 2000 run for the presidency. Bauer had been the undersecretary of education and a domestic policy advisor to President Reagan.
Bauer raised the FRC’s profile, increased its effectiveness, and built a national network of “concerned citizens” during the Clinton Administration. But the FRC separated from Focus on the Family in 1992 over concerns that its very political work might threaten Focus’ tax-exempt status; Dobson and two other Focus officials joined the FRC’s newly independent board. As an independent nonprofit, the FRC continued its work in “pro-family” areas, working against abortion and stem cell research, fighting pornography and homosexuality, and promoting “the Judeo-Christian worldview as the basis for a just, free, and stable society.” That work would establish FRC as one of the most powerful of the far right’s advocacy groups.
Bauer brought in several anti-gay researchers who pumped out defamatory material about the LGBT community. Robert Knight, a longtime conservative writer and journalist and major anti-gay propagandist, served as the FRC’s director of cultural affairs from 1992 until 2002, when he went to Concerned Women for America (CWA). Knight later moved on to be a senior writer at Coral Ridge Ministries, now Truth in Action Ministries. He is currently a senior fellow at the right-wing American Civil Rights Union. During his years at the FRC, Knight penned anti-gay tracts that used the research of thoroughly discredited psychologist Paul Cameron, head of the Colorado-based hate group the Family Research Institute. Knight authored numerous anti-gay papers, and even used Cameron’s infamous “gay obituary” study in testimony he offered before Congress to oppose the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in 1994. In his prepared statement on that topic, he said, “A study of more than 6,400 obituaries in homosexual publications reveals that homosexuals typically have far shorter life spans than the general population.” Cameron’s study has been thoroughly discredited for several reasons, one of which is its deeply flawed methodology. When asked in 2004 about using Cameron’s work, Knight, by then with CWA, responded, “Yes, we have used his research. So what?”
