Truth Wins Out Responds to Family Research Council’s Call for Removal of its Hate Group Designation



Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director

Email: wbesen@truthwinsout.org

Phone: 917.691.5118

WASHINGTON – Today, in response to a shooting at the headquarters of the Family Research Council on Wednesday, FRC President Tony Perkins held a press conference in which he stated that the “reckless” labeling of his organization as an anti-gay hate group by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center gave the shooter “a license” to carry out his attack.

Truth Wins Out, the national LGBT organization dedicated to fighting anti-gay extremism, released the following statement:

“Truth Wins Out and dozens of major LGBT organizations across the country swiftly condemned yesterday’s shooting at Family Research Council headquarters,” said Wayne Besen, the group’s founder and executive director. “The LGBT community knows all too well the devastating consequences of violence – lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people are harassed, threatened, intimidated, beaten, and killed on a daily basis in violent acts of hatred all over the world, simply because of who they are and who they love. That is why — yesterday, today, and every day — we stand squarely against violence in all its forms, because violence is never a way to resolve political differences or settle disputes.”

“But yesterday’s senseless act of violence does not exonerate the Family Research Council and other anti-gay hate groups from the decades they’ve spent slandering, demonizing, and actively lying about the LGBT community,” added John Becker, TWO’s Director of Communications. “The Southern Poverty Law Center – a venerable civil rights organization that monitors and documents extremism across the country – rightfully labeled the Family Research Council an anti-gay hate group because of its extensive history of spreading malicious, hateful falsehoods about gay people. FRC is not a hate group because of its public policy views, as Mr. Perkins has alleged. It is a hate group because it earned that designation.”

“In his statement today, Tony Perkins expressed appreciation for the LGBT community’s swift repudiation of violence but asked us to go further and disavow FRC’s hate-group designation. Truth Wins Out cannot do that,” concluded Besen. “The Family Research Council says that gays are deviants and pedophiles, strongly promotes fraudulent ‘pray-away-the-gay’ therapy, calls for the imprisonment of gay people, and says that homosexuality is destructive to society. Perkins cannot be allowed to exploit the sympathy rightfully generated by this inexcusable crime to whitewash his group’s ongoing anti-gay activities. If the FRC wants to stop being labeled a hate group, it must stop doing and saying hateful things.”

Truth Wins Out (TWO) is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to create a world where LGBT individuals can live openly, honestly and true to themselves. TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes their leaders. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

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