Family Research Council President Tony Perkins has compared conservatives in the U.S. to the victims of Nazi Germany and ISIS, claiming that LGBT equality advocates are channeling the two groups in their purported persecution of their political opponents. So now, naturally, Perkins is comparing U.S. conservatives to the victims of the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris.
On yesterday’s edition of “Washington Watch,” Perkins compared Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s decision to terminate the city’s fire chief — who had violated city employment practices by distributed to his employees a self-published book containing condemnations of homosexuality — to the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
“Look. What happened there in Paris was designed to intimidate and silence,” he said. “What happened here in Georgia, it wasn’t terrorists, it was a mayor; it wasn’t a gun he fired, but it was the chief he fired. And the intent was the same. It was to silence and to intimidate people of faith.”
Speaking at a rally yesterday in protest of the Atlanta chief’s firing, Perkins again equated Reed’s action with the violence committed by the Charlie Hebdo attackers. Perkins, incidentally, isn’t the first FRC staffer to make the comparison.
This past weekend, the world marched in Paris recognizing that free speech is the cornerstone of truly free societies. A realization is now sweeping Europe that political correctness has become lethal and it is an avowed enemy of true freedom. While many believe the satirical work of Charlie Hebdo was in bad taste and of poor form, we recognize the freedom that they had to speak without fear of reprisal or the threat of violence. Make no mistake about it, last week’s violent assault was designed to intimidate and silence others who would dare exercise that fundamental human right of the freedom of speech. But whether a journalist in France satirically writing about religion or a fire chief in Atlanta, Georgia writing about the sacred teachings of his faith, the silencing of either is a threat to the freedoms of all. The naked truth is that the actions taken against the chief are designed to send a message that will silence Christians and in effect force them to check their faith at the door of public service. My friends, we must not let that happen in the United States of America.
