On Monday’s edition of Erin Burnett OutFront on CNN hosted by Jake Tapper a potyion of the show focused on District Court Judge Clark Waddoups stricking down of a portion of Utah’s anti-polygamy statute which aimed at prohibiting polygamous cohabitation. And of course they invite on Tony Perkins, president of the SPLC hate group certified Family Research Council (FRC), totalk about it and baselessly accuse marriage equality of creating a slippery slope to polygamy after asking him whether the growing acceptance of homosexuality was to blame for the decriminalization of polygamous relationships in Utah.
Perkins, who routinely links homosexuality to pedophilia and refers to homosexuality as a “lifestyle” of “perversion,” was all-too-happy to use this opportunity to revive his organization’s longstanding opposition to Lawrence v. Texas and support for laws criminalizing gay sex.
[Anti-polygamy activist Laurie] Allen, who herself was raised in a polygamous environment and staunchly opposes polygamy, criticized Perkins for attempting to compare polygamous relationships and same-sex relationships, calling his arguments “salacious propaganda.”
Rather than pointing out the absurdity of Perkins’ arguments, however, Tapper went on to quote an FRC statement suggesting that the legalization of same-sex marriage might create a “slippery slope” to the legalization of polygamous marriage in the future, despite the fact that the judge’s ruling did not actually legalize polygamous marriage.
Both Jake Tapper and CNN owe the LGBT community an apology for not only baiting Perkins and setting him up to spread lies about same-sex marriage linking to polygamy and how the Supreme Court really made a mistake when it stopped letting states throw people in jail just for being gay.
Oh, and there’s also the fact that they let a white supremacist linked hate group leader be on the show in the first place. Perhaps next time Tapper could do some real reporting and grill Tony Perkins on that and his outrageous lies against the LGBT community instead of using him as an “expert” on anything and lending him credibility.
If GLAAD is going to be too chicken to call CNN and Tapper out then we as a community must be the ones to do so.
Jake Tapper can be reached via his Twitter account at @jaketapper and CNN using THIS LINK.