Conservatives Rally Behind Tony Perkins and Blast CBS's Bob Schieffer

RESTON, VA – Under the auspices of the Conservative Action Project (CAP), more than 40 conservative leaders sent a letter to David Rhodes, president of CBS News. The letter slammed Bob Schieffer for his recent bigoted and biased remarks and put forward conservative support for Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins. [Read the full letter]

This past Sunday, Perkins appeared on Face the Nation with CBS’s Bob Schieffer to talk about the same-sex marriage case before the Supreme Court. Schieffer said that he was inundated by requests from people that Perkins be disinvited because “you [Perkins] don’t speak for Christians.”

Then, citing the hateful Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Schieffer went on to parrot SPLC’s characterization of the FRC as an “anti-gay hate group.” Ironically, a 2013 shooting at the FRC was carried out by someone who cited the SPLC’s designation of FRC as a reason for doing so.

The letter demands that CBS and Bob Schieffer apologize on Face the Nation for “using the SPLC to smear people of faith.”

MRC President Brent Bozell reacts:

“This ambush of my friend Tony Perkins by CBS’s Bob Schieffer is beyond the pale. The work the Family Research Council and its president Tony Perkins do to promote a pro-family culture and traditional values cannot be overstated. And to suggest, as Schieffer did, that the FRC doesn’t represent Christians is laughable. 

“For CBS News to cite the SPLC as a resource is particularly outrageous given that one of the SPLC’s supporters shot and wounded a security guard inside the FRC’s headquarters a few years ago. Would it be okay if Fox News cited a white supremacist group to call into question a liberal group? Of course not.

“This is another example of the left’s continued war against Judeo-Christian people of faith. The left’s allies in the liberal media will stop at nothing to silence, censor, and shame Americans who embrace traditional values. It’s become an epidemic and it’s sickening. If Bob Schieffer has any integrity, he will apologize on Face the Nation for using SPLC as a resource to smear people of faith.”

The following signers have also joined:

Austin Ruse
President
Center for Family and Human Rights

Robert J. Muise, Esq.
Co-Founder & Senior Counsel
American Freedom Law Center

David Yerushalmi, Esq.
Co-Founder & Senior Counsel
American Freedom Law Center

Maggie Gallagher
Syndicated Columnist
Senior Fellow, American Principles Project

Gina Gleason
Executive Director
Faith and Public Policy
 
Paul Liberman
President
Messianic Jewish Alliance of America
 
Mathew D. Staver
Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel
 
Jerry A. Johnson, Ph.D.
President and CEO
National Religious Broadcasters
 
Joel M. Chernoff
General Secretary/CEO
Messianic Jewish Alliance of America
 
Brian Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage
 
Stuart W. Epperson
Chairman of the Board
Salem Communications Corporation
 
Judge Paul Pressler
Former member Executive Committee
Southern Baptist Convention
 
Dr. Theodore Baehr
Chairman and CEO, Christian Film and
Television CommissionTM / Movieguide®
 
Richard Viguerie
Chairman
ConservativeHQ.com

Andrea Lafferty
President
Traditional Values Coalition

Martin Mawyer
President
Christian Action Network

Lew Uhler
President
National Tax Limitation Committee
 
Craig Shirley
Reagan Biographer

Rick Scarborough
President
Vision America Action

Rabbi Daniel Lapin
President
American Alliance of Jews and Christians

Bob McEwen
Former Member of Congress

Tom Trento
Director
The United West