Tony Perkins on MSNBC Cross-posted from Bold Faith Type

MSNBC is in the news this week for announcing that they may finally be ending their contract with contributor Pat Buchanan, who has come under fire in the last month (deservedly) for publishing another book with incendiary racist commentary. Led by Color of Change and CREDO Action, hundreds of thousands of people pressured MSNBC to fire Buchanan. This latest update suggests MSNBC finally listened to their concerns.

Unfortunately, Buchanan wasn’t the MSNBC’s only problematic regular contributor. As Media Matters has tracked, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins has appeared on the network 18 times in the past year alone–almost as often as he’s gone on Fox News.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has rightfully declared Family Research Council a hate group because of their consistent, unwavering commitment to spreading hateful lies about the LGBT community.

Speaking on MSNBC, Perkins has falsely claimed that “the research is overwhelming that homosexuality poses a danger to children,” and another FRC official has called for criminalizing homosexuality.

In other contexts, FRC officials have:

- Written that “one of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order”;

- Alleged that gays and lesbians serving openly in the military would commit a greater number of sexual assaults on heterosexual service members, and that members of Congress who vote to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” would have “the blood of innocent soldiers on their hands”;

- Attacked anti-bullying programs in public schools, describing them as a way of “indoctrinating impressionable school children.”

Yet instead of accurately identifying FRC as a untrustworthy hate group, MSNBC has continued to treat its officials as legitimate political commentators, most recently inviting Perkins on air just yesterday twice to discuss how evangelical Christians view the Republican presidential candidates.

In response, Faithful America has launched a petition calling on MSNBC to “stop inviting Family Research Council spokespeople on the air to represent the views of Christians and other people of faith.”

Just as racist rhetoric has no place in the media, anti-gay liars should not be baptized as credible Christian messengers, particularly for a network built on progressive viewers. MSNBC should continue its move to improve its contributor rolls by keeping FRC off its shows.