Tony Perkins, head of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council, is urging his followers to pray – against civil rights laws.
Perkins starts his emailed screed by bemoaning Nancy Pelosi’s election by Democrats to return as Speaker of the House. Before election day, Pelosi said the Equality Act would be a top priority if Democrats won the majority, adding “it’s personal for me.”
If passed, the Equality Act would ban discrimination against women and LGBTQ people in employment, housing, education, and several other areas at the federal level.
Related: Christian hate group leader Tony Perkins got his butt handed to him on live TV
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“The liberal Democratic party leader will be second in succession to the President, after Vice President Mike Pence,” Perkins warns his followers. He goes on to point out that a bipartisan group of approximately 200 House members also support the proposed law.
Perkins ties himself in knots trying to find a way to describe the law negatively – including a generous amount of scare quotes.
“The Equality Act would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include ‘sex,’ ‘sexual orientation,’ and ‘gender identity’ among expressly-recognized ‘non-discrimination’ categories in ‘public accommodations,’ require employers with 15 or more employees to recognize the claimed ‘gender identity’ of those who identify as transgender, and require employers to allow those who identify as transgender to ‘access’ opposite-sex restrooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms.”
But when Perkins gets to the daily prayer, he really goes off the rails as he exhorts God to deliver them from following civil rights law that requires they treat everyone with respect.
“Father, please open the eyes of all Americans to understand that religious liberty, which our original 13 states demanded be included as our first freedom in the Bill of Rights, must be honored above behavior which is immoral,” Perkins writes, conveniently forgetting that in the Bible, Jesus told his disciples to follow secular law.
“Lord, expose the underlying intent of this effort — to punish Christians and others with a biblical view of marriage and human sexuality, and so to set a precedent from which to expand their persecutions under the guise of law. Deliver us, O God!”
In the Bible, Jesus told believers that his biggest commandment was to love each other. He did not make an exception for LGBTQ people.
At the end of his missive, Perkins includes references to Bible passages where Biblical figures revolted against the government.
