August 13, 2014
Tony Perkins :: Christian Businesses Need to Fund 'Ex-Gay' Ministries
EDGE READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Attention all homo-hating Christian business owners! Are anti-discrimination ordinances getting you down? Are you afraid that the cash you make from frosting that cake or developing those photos from those pesky same-sex wedding ceremonies will get you a one-way ticket to Lucifer's lounge? Well, Tony Perkins of the anti-gay hate group Family Research Council (FRC) has a solution - - send that money to an ex-gay ministry.
A few months after taking a victory lap over the passage of a religious protections law in Mississippi, which allows businesses to refuse service based upon "sincerely held religious beliefs," FRC president Tony Perkins has taken to the anti-gay airways to decry what he considers the targeted persecution of Christian businesses who only want to discriminate in the Lord's name, Right Wing Watch reports.
"They're targeting these Christian businesses these Christian bakers and Christian photographers and put them in a dilemma. Are they going to operate according to their faith or comply? And sometimes it's under the threat of the law." Perkins said on Monday's edition of his FRC radio show "Washington Watch."
Perkins' solution? Christian businesses should donate the profits they make from being "forced to" serve gay clients to ministries that take part in the discredited practice of gay conversion therapy.
"These businesses should put a sign out the front saying 'we're a Christian business and we believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman but we'll serve everybody because we're forced to, but just know that all profits from these same-sex ceremonies will be given to ministries that help those that want to come out of the homosexual lifestyle.'" Perkins suggests. "And I think that will stop a lot of the targeting of Christian businesses when those people realize that 'hey if I'm going to do business there my money is going to go to those ministries that actually help people overcome same-sex attraction. I think that's one way that, as Barney Fife would say would 'nip it in the bud.'"
Perkins' idea of inverting funds to profit causes that are in direct contrast to the clients' interests is hardly original. As ' target='_blank'>reported in 2011, when the anti-gay group the Westboro Baptist Church planned to protest a performance by comedian Lisa Lampanelli in Topeka, Kan., the "queen of mean" announced she would donate $1,000 to GMHC for every protester that attended. In all, 44 protesters showed up but Lampaneli decided to round up and donate $50,000 to the organization. She credited the donation as being "made possible by the WBC."