Hate Group Leader Tony Perkins Makes "State Of The Family" Address

Via the Washington Times:

The American way of life is in crisis and is in need of a spiritual, moral and cultural renewal, a traditional values leader said Monday night in a first-of-its-kind address. “The state of our union is only as strong as the state of our family,” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC), said in the first “state of the family” speech, presented on the eve of President Obama’s State of the Union address. Mr. Perkins singled out religious freedom as the foundation for “the whole of our republic” and lamented that religious liberties seem to be “chipped away” with “each rap of the gavel of an activist judge or human rights tribunal.” He first called on Christians to “pray and to act,” to renew the pledge to keep American “one nation, under God.”

He further asked for the passage of the Marriage and Religious Freedom Act to prevent “government discrimination against those whose conscience and beliefs view marriage as a union of a man and a woman.” His final request, in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., were for faithful Americans of different races to march together, “all as one in Christ Jesus,” to rebuild the key elements of U.S. society, and for Americans not to be silent or retreat into their churches or homes “in the face of threatening winds of intolerance and irreligion.” The FRC president singled out four families in the audience who endured, or are enduring, a crucible of faith over abortion or same-sex marriage.

In his speech Perkins singled out the current martyrs of the religious right including the former Atlanta fire chief and the owners of anti-gay bakeries and floral shops.