Republican leaders including Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and Rick Perry like to trumpet the work of pseudo-historian David Barton despite his long record of blatant dishonesty and anti-gay bigotry. Back in January, Barton and WallBuilders Live co-host Rick Green denied the existence of bullying against LGBT youth and said that anti-bullying laws represented “homosexual indoctrination.” On today’s program, Barton continued to press his extreme views that students are becoming gay because of “indoctrination,” citing a discredited far-right doctors’ group.

Barton cited the American College of Pediatricians, a right-wing group that split off from the much larger and mainstream American Academy of Pediatricians because of the ACP’s stringent opposition to LGBT rights, particularly the right of gay and lesbian couples to adopt children. According to the AAP, the ACP’s “campaign does not acknowledge the scientific and medical evidence regarding sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual health, or effective health education.” The ACP also endorsers ‘ex-gay’ reparative therapy, saying, “therapy to restore heterosexual attraction can be effective for many people.”

Barton wrongly cites the ACP as “the leading pediatric association in America” and then repeats its anti-gay rhetoric, arguing that courses against bullying and that affirm non-heterosexual orientations are simply “indoctrination.”

Discussing how schools should attend to LGBT students, Barton said: “If you’ll just let this develop naturally, they’ll end up being heterosexual unless you force them to be homosexual.” He goes on to say, “Let it run its course. If you let it run its course it’s gonna turn out normal and natural unless you guys intervene and make the unnatural stuff natural, it’s gonna run its course.”

Barton goes on to say that classes that promote a positive view of the LGBT community and condemn bullying will cause more students to become gay in the same way anti-suicide courses supposedly made more students commit suicide: