April 10, 2016

Fox News' Elizabeth Prann from America's Election Headquarters had Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council on to help her "better understand" all the awesome laws discriminating against pretty much anyone and everyone not white, straight and Republican. You know, people using bathrooms and what not. Let's not concern ourselves with people like Hastert, a straight white GOP who allegedly molested at least four boys, they think that is totally ok. But men that have transitioned to women and want to pee in a stall in a ladies room? Predators! Lock them up, all of them.

PRANN: Critics argue these bills are legalized discrimination. So what are the consequences of these types of laws and what is fact and what is fiction? Joining us to get a better understanding, Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council.

Tony, thank you so much for joining us and helping us get a better understanding of a lot of these bills that we're seeing. I want to start in North Carolina. What do you find unique about this bill, and what would the consequences be?

PERKINS: Elizabeth, what the legislation is in North Carolina is, is simply say, for public safety purposes, we're not going to allow an ordinance in Charlotte, which would require private businesses and others to open up their restroom facilities, locker rooms, so that a man could go into a woman's bathroom, or where girls are at. It's simply a public safety issue.

So a man who transitioned to a woman and wanting to pee poses a threat? Really? To whom, exactly?

PERKINS: So that clearly, that was simply saying the government cannot force businesses to do that. It does not prohibit businesses if they want to do it on their own, and that's the hypocrisy. You see businesses like PayPal weighing in, saying they're going to boycott, they're not going to do business in North Carolina, when they don't even have these policies within their own private businesses that they're free to do.

PRANN: There are thirteen states considering legislation according to our brain room relating to bathroom usage, but they are different. They're the same, but different. They're sort of a plaid, if you will if that makes sense of reasonings behind them. Some are public safety. Others, religious liberty. How do you clarify that for folks and why is there such a misunderstanding for some of these laws that are being presented?

PERKINS: Well, this comes in the wake of the Supreme Court last June in redefining marriage and opening the door to all kinds of public policy problems. And in Mississippi for instance last week, signed into law a religious liberty bill. A different that North Carolina. What it does is it says the government, and contrary to what people are saying, that this allows discrimination, it actually prohibits discrimination. It prohibits the government from discriminating against a religious organization or an individual based upon their religious beliefs.

PRANN: But PayPal says it is, and the Governor of Georgia says it is. What do you say to them?

PERKINS: Well, I say for instance, you've got a number of nonprofit, faith based adoption agencies for instance, that work with the states who place children in homes, that they have a faith statement. They believe that marriage, as the president did just a few years ago, is the union of a man and a woman.

What this does is prohibits the state from taking away their tax exemption, or not working with them to place children into a position or into a home, or it would prohibit the state from taking away the tax exemption of a church, because the church belief that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. So what it does, it keeps the state from being used as the club to beat people into submission, and to abandon their deeply held belief.

PRANN: Mississippi has certainly more of a sweeping law. Can you explain to me why Mississippi has probably a larger consequences, and where do we draw the line? Where do states and lawmakers draw the line?

PERKINS: Again, Elizabeth, what Mississippi does, it does not take away any rights from someone who says they believe in same-sex marriage, or they want a same-sex marriage. It doesn't take anything away from them. What it does is it keeps the state from punishing someone because they believe that marriage is still the union between a man and a woman.

So, it would prohibit the state from affecting their tax status, or from denying them, let's say they're in the business of helping drug addicts, and they're a faith based organization, because they believe that marriage is a union of a man and a woman, they couldn't be denied a state contract that they help teenagers.

So, it's simply taking the state out of this so that the state cannot be used to bludgeon people. This is all about our first freedom, the freedom to believe and live according to your beliefs. That's fundamental and that's what has made America work, is that we've given people that stake. This, I believe, what Mississippi has done is that compromise that will give us that space so that we can have a civil society.

So to clarify, discrimination makes a civil society? No, it makes a bigoted, hateful, homophobic society. The GOP can try to spin it anyway they want with fancy word salad. This is hateful legislation, plain and simple.

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