Tony Perkins Vs Politifact

Politifact ripped to shreds Tony Perkins' claim on Face The Nation that business are being forced to serve gay customers.

We didn't find cases where people were forced to participate against their will. However, if vendors refuse service, there are consequences. There are 21 states that forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation. Vendors who refuse service there could face legal actions and fines. The "jail" part of Perkins’ claim is an exaggeration. We couldn’t find any evidence that a vendor had been sent to jail or that any legal authority had threatened jail time. In some states, if a business owner loses an anti-discrimination case and refuses to comply with an order, the owner could face jail, but we found no evidence of that ever happening. One state, Colorado, specifically took action to remove the threat of jail.

Perkins fired off a super-pissed email last night:

The media, in a desperate attempt to downplay the persecution Americans will face for opposing same-sex "marriage," is resorting to lies from its own "fact-checkers." They understand, as we do, that it's harder to vilify someone when you see them suffering for living out their faith.  And for dozens of men and women, that suffering is taking place in the form of more than jail time. For them, the nightmare is already here in the form of thousands of dollars in fines, lawsuits, public humiliation, boycotts of their businesses, death threats, and vandalism of their property. This is the real intolerance. And one day, no amount of shoddy journalism will be able to hide it.

Perkins again fails to note that public accommodation laws predate marriage equality in every state where such protections exist.