Josh Duggar, the oldest of the Duggar children from TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting, has accepted a job at the Family Research Council (FRC), making him an outright anti-gay activist. FRC has been classified as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and has a long history of attacking the LGBT community and their friends, family and allies.
Duggar has said in the past that he "will be working with a Christian organization to help promote 'family values and right to life.” But FRC has spent decades attacking same-sex couples and their families, as well as the families of LGBT young people. Duggar said that he will be working on the 501c4 side of the organization, which is more politically driven. He can't even claim he's just going to shape the culture.
Now that Josh Duggar has accepted a position at such an anti-gay organization, he has become a full-fledged anti-gay activist. What does this mean for TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting? Will TLC allow it to become a mainstream outlet for FRC’s dangerous message? What about the Duggar family's appearances in other media? Will his work with one of the most vile anti-gay organizations in America be legitimized there?
"If Josh Duggar wants to make a living dehumanizing and denigrating LGBT people and their families, that's his business, but FRC's lies and stereotypes need to be treated as such," said GLAAD Spokesperson Wilson Cruz. "Josh's new boss Tony Perkins has actually accused LGBT equality advocates of being pawns of the devil. Fans of his family's reality show ought to know that."
Several of the Family Research Council's current and former staff are included in GLAAD's Commentator Accountability Project, which aims to bring attention to the outlandish and offensive claims made by the most extreme anti-gay activists.
Tony Perkins, the President of the Family Research Council is probably one of the most ubiquitous anti-gay activists in the media. Here's just a sampling of some of his statements:
Says Republican Senator Rob Portman should not support his gay son's "choices that are both harmful to [him] and to society as a whole"
Compared Mayor Bloomberg's proposed ban on supersized soft drinks to the "need" to ban homosexuality http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/the-last-straw-for-mayor-big-gulp
Lumps together Aurora shooting, kidnapping, and openly gay soldiers as three examples of a "nation gone under"
Claims "blood of young marines" is on hands of legislators who voted to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell
Peter Spring, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies has also had a track record of extreme and untrue statements about LGBT people.
Stated, “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States, because we believe that homosexuality is destructive to society.”
Says he wants to see being gay punished by law: “I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior"
Equates being gay with smoking: “There is, for example, a single and simple solution for smoking-related illnesses, and we have all heard it—‘If you don’t smoke, don’t start. If you do smoke, quit.'
You can hear audio of Josh Duggar's announcement here: