ABC's This Week Hosts Anti-Gay Hate Group To Discuss Marriage Equality Ruling

Ken Blackwell

ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos hosted the Family Research Council's Ken Blackwell to discuss the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, without disclosing the the organization's longstanding “hate group” designation.

On the June 28 edition of This Week, George Stephanopoulos hosted FRC senior fellow Ken Blackwell to discuss the Supreme Court's ruling on Friday that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional. Blackwell suggested that LGBT Americans should have been made to wait until they were granted equal rights through a constitutional amendment instead of through the Supreme Court.

Stephanopoulos failed to disclose that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the FRC a “hate group” since 2010, owing to its promotion of extreme and bigoted myths about LGBT people and calls by its employees to criminalize homosexuality. The FRC supported Uganda's 2012 “Kill the Gays” bill, and president Tony Perkins has consistently linked homosexuality to pedophelia, calling homosexuality a health risk.

In 2014, Blackwell blamed the 2014 mass murder in Isla Vista, California on “the attack on ... natural marriage.” In a 2009 column, Blackwell compared same-sex marriage to incest. He also bizarrely suggested that transgender and bisexual individuals would use same-sex marriage laws to demand participation in polygamous marriages.

In April, CBS' Bob Schieffer helpfully identified Perkins as a “hate group” leader before an interview on same-sex marriage, saying “the Southern Poverty Law Center has branded the Family Research Council an anti-gay hate group.” Stephanopoulos could follow this example when hosting members of hate groups on This Week