Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, spoke to American Family Association’s Sandy Rios on her talk show “Sandy Rios in the Morning” this week about the danger of growing support for gay rights within the conservative movement.
Rios began the segment by discussing her concern regarding Guy Benson, a conservative commentator for the Salem Media Group-owned Townhall.com who recently came out as gay in a footnote to his new book, End of Discussion, coauthored by Mary Katharine Ham. Rios is not the only AFA affiliate to speak out against Benson, as American Family Radio’s Bryan Fischer also issued a statement calling for Benson’s replacement. Rios played a clip in which Megyn Kelly of Fox News tells Guy Benson on her show, “You are in a safe place here.”
Rios, who hired Benson to be the producer of her previous radio program, responded to Benson’s announcement by sharing that “when he came out last week it was a great shock to me, and very sad, very sad.” For Rios, “it’s not just a matter of Guy coming out; it’s that they’re coming out endorsing gay marriage. That’s not the main part of their book but it’s, it’s a huge part of their book. They’re both mainstream conservative voices.” Rios warned that “even though Guy smiles and is very sweet, I fear for the repercussions of this.”
“Guy Benson’s professed homosexuality is not a mere footnote, Sandy,” LaBarbera added. “And that’s the temptation of the new, I guess I’d call it soulless, conservatism.” LaBarbera explained that identifying as a gay Christian “makes no more sense, Sandy, than someone being a so-called porn-using Christian, or substitute any other sexual sin, and that doesn’t make a positive identity.”
“And yet,” bemoaned LaBarbera, “look what Megyn Kelly says. She says ‘you’re so brave.’ Why is it brave? You can tell there’s an approving tone when you watch the interview. It’s just bizarre that we’ve come to this point that somebody professes homosexuality and a quote ‘gay’ identity, which puts a really sort of nice face on it, is brave and that’s a sign of being honest, when actually it’s merely publicly embracing a sin.”
Rios, seemingly personally offended by Kelly’s “safe place” remark, responded, “Where did that, I mean, what could have been unsafe? I mean, Guy worked with me for years, and he’s still, he may not be happy with me discussing this publicly, but he would not be surprised, and certainly when he was working with me he was in a safe place. My love for him has not changed, but I am grieved to the bone, that he is, that this is an issue in his life.”
Rios added that she felt compelled to speak because, from her perspective, Benson’s coming out will have “detrimental, terribly detrimental effects on what it means to be a Christian conservative because it muddies the lines. And it’s also, if Salem does not care about this, Salem the Christian communications company, and if Heritage, who is fighting gay marriage, doesn’t care that they’re premiering a book that, you know, the authors, Mary Kathrine Ham has her own big following, are supportive of gay marriage, the lines are just being erased.”
Rios, still reeling from her grief, said, “Surely he must know that if the Supreme Court comes out and legalizes gay marriage all over the country people will be breaking the law if they oppose it in any way. So, uh, the normally clear-thinking guy is not thinking clearly, and neither is Megyn.”
“Yeah. I agree with you,” LaBarbera responded. “He also came out for nondiscrimination laws in the BuzzFeed article and those laws have been the basis for the persecution of people who oppose homosexuality.”
Comparing Benson with the “small number of openly homosexual people” who are against marriage equality, LaBarbera said that by embracing LGBT equality, Benson has joined a “radical” and “revolutionary” movement that “is all about normalizing homosexuality.”
“He says he’s standing on the shoulders of gay activists,” LaBarbera said, “and when I saw that I was like, ‘Well, which ones?’ Are you standing on the shoulders of the 1970s gay activists who scream in politicians’ faces? What about the homosexuals who will harass people, harass the psychologists to have them supposedly normalize homosexuality in the APA, the American Psychiatric Association, the direct-action homosexuals who use far-left techniques? I know he said he’s not with the far left, but, I mean Sandy, this is a movement that is all about normalizing homosexuality. That was a radical, a revolutionary goal. So which homosexual activist is Guy Benson standing on? That’s kind of troubling to me.”
