Comments on: This is what Tony Perkins’s Head Looks Like On A Platter

By: Meadowlark

Meadowlark — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:10:45 +0000

I agree with Timothy that the important development in this interview is the public admission that Tony Perkins has never been in the home of a gay couple. The interviewer did manage to reveal the way all his arguments are founded on an imaginary abstract evil “them,” showing that he would be uncomfortable making those arguments to the face of a real couple.

But I do wish interviewers would ask, “What’s wrong with re-defining things?”

Everybody always seems to accept the idea that “redefining marriage” is bad. But redefining happens all the time; that’s the way language and culture actually work. The concept of “citizen” has been redefined many times–it once meant “white men of property” but the redefinitions expanded that meaning to include people of color, people who don’t own property, and people who are women. Who would argue that this redefining process was bad?

And, thinking along those lines, I wish people like Perkins would be confronted with the suggestion that the marriage equality movement is NOT redefining marriage. Instead, it’s redefining “homosexuality” so that term no longer means “evil deviants deserving only second-class citizenship.” Or perhaps it’s redefining “normal” to include all sexual orientations on the spectrum. Or once again redefining “citizen” to fully include LGBT people.

What Perkins and his ilk are really trying to do is maintain the old definitions that keep gay people in an inferior position. He should be asked why he wants to defend those old harmful definitions. In a way, this interviewer was trying to get at that when she asked him why gay people bother him so much.

Let’s stop accepting the assumption that redefining is a bad thing.

By: boatboy_srq

boatboy_srq — Mon, 28 May 2012 18:34:19 +0000

The thing that strikes me is this: ill-prepared as she was, Baldwin still took Perkins down a couple notches. It was really good to watch him squirm – and it was SO EASY to do.

If the MSM put their collective mind to it, they’d have these h8ers over a barrel, making them admit that it’s not SSM, it’s not SSPs, it’s not “religious liberty” – plain and simple, it’s TEH BUTTSECKS on which they all focus which is the problem. Take away all their misquoted Scripture, all their out-of-context statisics, all their outdated and refuted psych texts, and all they have is vague squirming every time they think about LGBT people getting it on. All an interviewer has to do is read the talking points and find a handful of holes (the 2-parents-are-better-than-1 study, for example) to pick the likes of Perkins apart. I imagine a full dissection would take less than fifteen minutes.

Baldwin did a (sadly) better-than-average job squashing the FRCer. Imagine what she could do if she were properly prepared. NOW – imagine what ALL the MSM could do if it bothered to prepare AT ALL.

By: Argelius

Argelius — Sun, 27 May 2012 21:21:09 +0000

Love how two dudes wanting to get married equates to denying him his religious freedom. His religion denies other their social freedom. Who are the real victims here?

By: Charles

Charles — Sun, 27 May 2012 00:19:00 +0000

Tony dazzles reporters with his reasoned, easy, professional manner and dispensation of facts. But before they know it, he begins generalizing, conflating, and doing 2+2=5, but the reporters don’t really know the research, so they can’t call him out on his conflations.
Make him explain how he is connecting things that don’t really yield the result he is implying.
For instance, his points in this interview are derived from research about single parent vs. two-parent households. It shows nothing about same sex parents.
Don’t go the emotional route – take him down on his own turf – his “research”.

By: MJC

MJC — Sat, 26 May 2012 13:54:57 +0000

The banner underneath, when Perkins appears on any show, should read “President of a Hate Group (as defined by the Southern Poverty Law Center).

I agree–this is another ineffective interview, which just lets Perkins and others like him prattle on with their lies. Everyone from Chris Matthews to David Gregory lets these clowns go completely unchallenged, and since Perkins keeps repeating the same things, it’s really unforgiveable.

He, Perkins, is an oily character. Early on in the interview, Perkins uses ‘altar’ as a synecdoche for marriage. (He does similar things all the time, and is never challenged). But any competent newscaster would tell him that we are talking about Federal laws, which should affirm a right under the equal protection laws of the US Constitution. That has NOTHING TO DO with any ‘altar’.

No one is being prevented from being married in a church according to their own faith.

His only response to that would be the easily dismissable “America is a Christian nation” idiocy, which is also easily refuted by any person knowledgeable on the subject.

Wake up, news anchors. Asking a question (or as you incorrectly often say, “begging the question”, which is something else altogether) also requires, it seems to me, some journalistic standards regarding the facts. I am a social scientist. THERE IS NO RESEARCH TO BACK UP PERKINS’ CLAIMS.

Further, since a state like Mass. HAS marriage equality, public schools have every right to teach in their classrooms what their laws represent.

This guy represents the American Taliban.

By: MCB

MCB — Sat, 26 May 2012 00:28:37 +0000

Oh yes, what really matters are the votes at the polls, that decisively proves that people are overwhelmingly against gay marr– oh wait, no it doesn’t! http://equalitymatters.org/blog/201205170002

By: Regan DuCasse

Regan DuCasse — Fri, 25 May 2012 21:13:41 +0000

I have to agree, I saw nothing all that different from any other interviews he’s been giving. And he still keeps getting asked to give them.
And he IS a liar, and why don’t some of these reporters drop the bomb on it?
He’s lying about what research shows on gay parents.
He keeps talking about gay people in the abstract and as if still a theory on what the outcome of marriage equality would really be.
It was important for her to point out that he NEVER actually knew or knows any gay parents personally, but clearly that’s not enough.
He kept bringing up POLICY. As if policy changes have anything to do with the quality of life that het people lead. Very misleading on his part, again.

She’s very similar to other reporters who TOUCH on something, but then don’t follow through ENOUGH to make Perkins look like the liar he truly is.

By: Lindoro Almaviva

Lindoro Almaviva — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:33:18 +0000

I wanted to jump in the screen and bitch slap him so much.

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:53:52 +0000

I understand and partially agree with those who rightly point out where she did not say what could have been said. And indeed had she asked the questions and refuted the statements provided it could have been stronger.

But I still have to go with Jim on the “head on a platter” characterization. For this reason:

Brooke got Tony Perkins to say that he has never been in the home of a gay couple. Ever.

To the 70+% of Americans who know a gay person, this looks bad. Really, really, bad.

And when he refused to talk about the personal, it became worse. You cannot talk about marriage and act as though it isn’t personal.

I think that reminded the viewers just how personal they take marriage and made him look like a heartless political hack.

Shwing, thunk, platter.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:48:06 +0000

Metaphor alert! You know where the “head on a platter” expression comes from, right? Do you really mean to suggest that Tony Perkins is like John the Baptist and that he’s going to be martyred for his faith?