Tony Perkins, president of the
Christian conservative Family Research Council (FRC), on Monday
praised President Donald Trump's reported plan to eliminate
transgender recognition.
The proposed policy would require
gender recognition based on a person's genitalia at birth, according
to a report by The New York Times.
(Related: Trump
proposed rule change would “define transgender out of existence.”)
Perkins called the Times' report
“fake,” saying that the paper's Sunday headline “was one for
the record books.”
“No one is 'defining transgender out
of existence,'” Perkins wrote. “What President Trump is doing is
following the law – which, after eight years of Barack Obama's
overreach, is suddenly a shocking concept. Under the last
administration, liberals were so used to the president twisting the
rules to suit the Left's agenda that it's news when Donald Trump
decides to operate within the plain text of the law. As far as the
New York Times is concerned, the most 'drastic' thing any
president could do is bring America back in line with legal statutes.
And this non-story that's setting the far-Left's hair on fire is
nothing more than that.”
“The Times’ agenda is
obvious – painting Trump as the extremist, when the real radicalism
was ignoring the law in the first place. Well, reporters may be out
of practice with the truth these days, but it’s time they came to
grips with one important reality. The president is not a legislator,
no matter how much Obama acted like one. If they want America to
change the way it defines discrimination, they need to start by
asking the right branch of government,” he added.
It should be noted that several courts
have concluded that federal civil rights protections extend to
transgender Americans.
The Family Research Council, which has
close ties to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, has
been labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC) over its anti-LGBT rhetoric.