A coalition of Christian leaders is asking CBS President David Rhodes to publicly apologize for “sloppy journalism” by host Bob Schieffer on “Face the Nation” a week ago.
A letter to Rhodes has been signed by Edwin Meese of the Conservative Action Project; Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List; J. Kenneth Blackwell, formerly of the U.N. Human Rights Commission; Lt. Gen. William Boykin of Family Research Council; Tim Wildmon of American Family Association; David Bossie of Citizens United; Douglas Napier of Alliance Defending Freedom; Herman Cain of The New Voice; and Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America.
Schieffer’s interview with Tony Perkins of FRC centered on the Supreme Court’s hearing on same-sex “marriage.”
“This past Sunday, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, appeared as a guest on ‘Face the Nation’ with CBS’s Bob Schieffer to discuss the Supreme Court same-sex marriage case,” the letter explains. “Schieffer said that he was inundated by requests that Perkins be disinvited because they believe ‘you [Perkins] don’t speak for Christians.’
“The interview was more than sloppy journalism. It was an assault against Judeo-Christian people of faith,” the letter states.
“The work that FRC and its president Tony Perkins do to promote healthy families and traditional values is irreplaceable in our culture. To suggest, as Schieffer did, that FRC doesn’t represent Christians flies in the face of reality. The millions of Americans that we, the undersigned, collectively represent are proof of that.”
As WND reported, Schieffer confronted Perkins with the Southern Law Poverty Center’s claim that FRC is a “hate” group.
What Schieffer left out was the fact that SPLC was named by a convicted domestic terrorist as the source of his information for what was intended to be a mass murder attack on FRC.
The exchange between Schieffer and Perkins on the same-sex marriage case before the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday is here:
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Schieffer said: “I’m going to start with probably the most vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, and that is Tony Perkins. He is the president of the Family Research Council. And, Mr. Perkins, I’m going to say this to you upfront. You and your group have been so strong in coming out against this – and against gay marriage that the Southern Poverty Law Center has branded the Family Research Council an anti-gay hate group. We have been inundated by people who say we should not even let you appear because they, in their view, quote, ‘You don’t speak for Christians.’ Do you think you have taken this too far?”
Perkins calmly responded that the Supreme Court opinion “is not going to settle this issue.”
“The courts are … to interpret the Constitution and the constitutionality of laws, not create public policy.”
He later wrote in his Washington Update dispatch that “discrimination isn’t what LGBT activists fear most. Debate is.”
“Not only do they want to force Christians to participate in an event that violates their beliefs – they want to punish and silence any dissenting thought,” he said.
He cited the case of the young owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, the Kleins, who were penalized $135,000 in Oregon for declining to produce a same-sex wedding cake.
A GoFundMe campaign raised more than $100,000 to help them, but it suddenly was shut down by GoFundMe.
“With amazing ferocity, LGBT activists targeted the GoFundMe site for daring to help a family for standing up for their faith. Faster than you can say ‘religious discrimination,’ the site pulled the plug on the campaign – outraging thousands of Americans who simply wanted to show their support for the First Amendment rights the government was denying them,” Perkins said.
About his interview with Schieffer, Perkins said: “It was disappointing to see that any media outlet would rely on a group like SPLC that has actually been linked to domestic terrorism in federal court and traffics in politically motivated, inaccurate, and biased claims. After taking a deeper look at the SPLC’s motives, the FBI removed links to the SPLC from its ‘hate crimes resources’ page and the Department of Defense, along with the U.S. Army, have distanced themselves from SPLC’s materials.”
He noted, too, that although the evidence had been presented earlier, Schieffer again questioned whether same-sex marriage would lead to discrimination against Christians.
“I pointed to the Kleins, and now, thanks to FRC’s brand-new site FreeToBelieve.com, we can point to several more Americans who are being persecuted – and in some cases prosecuted – for holding a view that, until three years ago, President Obama shared,” Perkins said.
WND has assembled a “Big List of Christian Coercion” about cases in which Christians have been required to violate their religious beliefs.
Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard called out Schieffer for his bias.
“To reiterate: the SPLC’s charges that Perkins’s organization is a ‘hate group,’ when SPLC’s irresponsible rhetoric very nearly got people at his organization killed, and without providing any context about the SPLC’s own questionable politics or the back story on how this accusation affected Perkins’s organization – well, that is inexcusably terrible journalism.”
WND reported the gun used in the attack in 2012 on the FRC was put into the Domestic Terrorism and Hate Crimes exhibit at the Crime Museum in Washington.
It joined the yellowed “eyes” of the Volkswagen Beetle that serial killer Ted Bundy used to kidnap his victims, the Unabomber’s letters, a noose from a Ku Klux Klan lynching and rubble from 9/11.
Homosexual activist Floyd Lee Corkins in the Aug. 15, 2012, attack walked into FRC headquarters in Washington armed with a semi-automatic pistol, 95 bullets and a sack of Chick-fil-A sandwiches with the intent, he later confessed, of killing “as many people as I could.”
He managed to shoot and injure just one person, facilities manager Leo Johnson, who is credited with heroically stopping the attack.
Corkins admitted he picked FRC, which promotes traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs about family and sexuality, because the organization was listed as an “anti-gay” hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center on its website.
Corkins, a former volunteer at an LGBT community center, pleaded guilty to terrorism following the FRC attack and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
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Corkins fingered the SPLC as his inspiration for the attack in an interview with the FBI.
Asked how he picked the FRC to attack, Corkins stated, “It was a, uh, Southern Poverty Law, lists, uh, anti-gay groups. I found them online. I did a little bit of research, went to the website, stuff like that.”
He said he spotted the FRC on the SPLC’s “hate map.”
The FBI interview with Corkins included this exchange:
FBI: “What was your intention … you’re … a political activist you said?”
Corkins: “Yeah, I wanted to kill the people in the building and then smear a Chicken-fil-A sandwich on their face.”
FBI: “And you, what was your intention when you went in there with the gun?”
Corkins: “Uh, it was to kill as many people as I could.”
At the time of the shooting, Chick-fil-A was in the headlines because of its president’s opposition to “gay marriage.”
The SPLC still lists the FRC as a “hate group” on its “hate map.”
In the Schieffer interview, the show host noted that surveys show more than half of Americans “favor gay marriage.”
Perkins noted that while 37 states recognize “gay marriage,” it’s been enacted through the wishes of voters in only three states.
“The vast majority of the others, it’s been imposed on them by the courts. And for those who would say there is a global consensus, that’s not true either. Only 17 of the 193 member states of the United Nations have redefined a marriage,” Perkins explained.
He also told Schieffer, “In our system of government, the courts are not the final say on issues.”
Added Hemingway: “In recent years, the SPLC has been fairly loose in its designation of ‘hate groups,’ and has applied the label to groups in ways that are baffling (e.g. Catholics who go to Latin mass). It has also applied the label to groups that are distasteful but perhaps not what one thinks of then they think of ‘hate groups’ (e.g. pick-up artists). One may not like what the Family Research Council stands for, but there is no serious argument that it is a ‘hate group,’ let alone an organization that does not represent the views of very significant number of Americans.
“That CBS News would lend credence to the accusations of the Southern Poverty Law Center – a once noble organization that has destroyed its credibility in all sorts of ways in recent years – is questionably enough.”
The new coalition letter also pointed out the inappropriateness of a network using the “discredited” SPLC as a course.
“For CBS News and Schieffer to cite this radical group to smear the FRC is outrageous given that an SPLC supporter shot and wounded a security guard inside the FRC’s headquarters in 2012. Luckily, the security guard was still able to subdue the SPLC supporter who was armed with a deadly weapon and had plans to murder as many of the FRC staff as possible,” the letter said.
“CBS … continues to use them as a ‘resource’ to smear upstanding Christians and Christian leaders such as Tony Perkins,” it said.
“CBS, and Bob Schieffer in particular, should apologize on ‘Face the Nation’ for using the SPLC to smear people of faith. If this does not happen, you will have made CBS and Bob Schieffer synonymous with the SPLC and the rabid anti-Christian bigotry that it represents.”
