Debating and crushing Tony Perkins

Here’s what you may call a debate (if it weren’t more of a rhetorical smackdown) on CBS News’s Face the Nation between David Boies, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the recent Prop 8 trial, and Tony Perkins, the bigoted head of the equally bigoted Family Research Council. As you would expect, Boies totally wiped the floor with Perkins, tearing apart his usual false claims and red herrings and leaving the viewer with no question as to who won.

It’s somewhat amusing how Perkins actually brought up Roe v Wade (1973), the court case that determined that abortion cannot be criminalized in the United States. Perkins noted that abortion wasn’t a very politicized issue back then and has only grown notorious in the years since. Of course, this is only because of the religious Right who launched a PR campaign against abortion and successfully managed to poison much of the public opinion on abortion. However, the fact is that social progress is inevitable and in another four decades, the exact reverse will be true: We will look back upon the now-fiery same-sex marriage debate and pause to wonder … “How in the hell was that ever a big deal?” You know, exactly as we now look at segregation and other social issues presented and rectified in the civil rights movement of the ’60s.

(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

Tags: same-sex marriage • gay marriage • LGBT marriage • Proposition 8 • Prop 8 • David Boies • Tony Perkins • debates