Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins Both Supporting and Giving Cover to the Alt-Right Crowd

Tony Perkins over the weekend praised Donald Trump for giving voice to those he sees as voiceless, the alt-right crowd of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, anti-Semites, anti-immigrants, and nationalists. Perkins serves as the head of theÂ Family Research Council, which appears on theÂ Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of active anti-gay hate groups. He also is well-acquainted with the alt-right, having been a Louisiana politician who reportedly paid $82,500 for KKK Grand Wizard David Duke‘s mailing list.

But when Alternet’s Adele Stan asked Perkins about Trump and the alt-right, he pretended to not know what the term meantÂ â€“ praising both Trump and the alt-right anyway.

“Iâ€™m wondering what you make of Trumpâ€™s hiring of Steve Bannon, who said that he had provided the platform for the alt-right,” Stan asked Perkins at the Family Research Council’sÂ Values Voter Summit this weekend, the anti-LGBT event where Trump and Pence both spoke.

“The what?,” Perkins responded.

“The alt-right, which Hillary Clintonâ€”,” Stan continued.

“I didnâ€™t hear his comment, so I canâ€™t really speak to that,” Perkins claimed. “I can speak to the fact that, in the last eight years, this administration, which Hillary Clinton has been a part of, has increasingly tried to marginalize people who do not surrender to a progressive, liberal agenda,” the anti-LGBT hate group leader claimed. Â

“And there have been a lot of alternative voices that have risen up, just because Americans feel they are under constant threat by this administrationâ€™s policies. So, what has given Donald Trump, I believe, the nomination, is that he has given voice to a lot of people who feel like their voice has all but been snuffed out under this administration.”

Yes, the head of an evangelical anti-LGBT hate group who regularly appears on cable television news shows and is so close to the GOP presidential nominee he helped him write his Liberty University speech, is praising Trump for giving voice toÂ the alt-right crowd of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, anti-Semites, anti-immigrants, and nationalists.Â

Or, as someone recently said, those who areÂ “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic â€“ you name it.”

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Images ofÂ TrumpÂ andÂ PerkinsÂ by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and aÂ CC license