#1960: Tom McClusky

The Family Research Council is a rightwing fundamentalist advocacy group justly classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center – and despite its name, none of the activities they are engaged in qualifies as “research” by any stretch of the imagination. Tom McClusky is its vice-president, and a fine example of the kind of hatred, bigotry and imperviousness to reason, evidence and decency that characterizes the organization as a whole. McClusky claims, for instance, that marriage equality may lead to society’s collapse (“Societies that try to do away with marriage, they crumble, they fall apart,” claims McClusky, deliberately pretending not to realize that fighting for the right of gays to marry is, you know, the opposite of trying to do away with marriage), laments the fact that the issue is virtually a dead one even among most conservative politicians, and has warned said politicians of their imprudence given the vast opposition to marriage equality among Americans – polls consistently showing majority support for marriage equality are “skewed”, according to McClusky, since that’s what he chooses to believe. Supporting the family, to McClusky, does not mean supporting families, but rather making life hard for families not organized according to McClusky’s blueprint for how families should be organized. He has also called for “civil disobedience” against marriage equality, though it is not entirely clear what that implies – that he will refrain from marrying a man?

And make no mistake: Tom McClusky is the victim here. Anti-bullying policies in public schools, for instance, are really “bullying by the federal government and by a homosexual agenda that seeks to make children hide their Christianity and their religion in the closet and to silence those who would speak out against what they don’t believe.” That’s right: Support marriage equality, and you’re bullying Tom McClusky. To remedy the situation and combat bullying, McClusky has been active in efforts to purge gays from positions of power in the Republican Party. Apparently, Uganda’s famously draconian anti-gay bill is a good anti-bullying measure, too.

Like many anti-gay activists McClusky succeeded in tying himself into some interesting rhetorical knots after Obama invoked the Golden Rule to endorse marriage equality (Patrick Wooden, for instance, complained that Obama was “quoting Scripture to debunk Scripture”). McClusky explained that using the Golden Rule is a reason to support the freedom to marry for gays and lesbians, is just like using the Golden Rule to condone suicide (you shouldn’t support the right of same-sex couples to wed just as you shouldn’t help a depressed neighbor commit suicide, claimed McClusky). That parallel doesn’t really work, Tom.

McClusky’s activities aren’t limited to anti-gay efforts, however. He is also a champion of defunding Planned Parenthood, has been involved in efforts to stop the creation of a National Women’s History Museum, and is a vocal opponent of the Violence Against Women Act.

Diagnosis: Stop bullying McClusky by disagreeing with him, supporting decency and criticizing violence against women, will you? McClusky is an evil person, and accordingly a victim of people who criticizes him for trying to act out his evil way.