Tony Perkins: We should pray for gay people just like we should pray for drug addicts

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Tony Perkins of the anti-gay Family Research Council, has spoken out on a radio broadcast to encourage listeners to pray for gay people in the same way that they would pray for drug addicts, or adulterers.

Perkins spoke in the radio broadcast, posted by Right Wing Watch, to say that listeners should pray for “those who are bound up in these lifestyles”.

Under “these lifestyles”, he listed gay people, drug addicts and adulterers, just as a few examples.

“Here’s the telling thing about speaking to this issue of homosexuality and I think we got to be very, very careful here,” he said.

“First off we need to be praying for those who are bound up in these lifestyles whether it is homosexuality, whether it is drugs, whatever it might be, anything that is outside the design of God for mankind, it could be adulterous relationships, it doesn’t matter.”

He went on to say that it was his goal to lead people towards “the abundant life”.

“Our goal in speaking about human sexuality is not to win an argument but it is to point people to life, the abundant life.”

Perkins last month voiced his disapproval at the Pentagon’s announcement that gay couples will be allowed leave to marry, if they live a certain distance from a state which legally recognises same-sex marriage.

Perkins earlier this year blamed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the US military ban on openly gay people serving, for suicides in the armed forces.

Previously, at the start of the US Supreme Court hearings around two equal marriage cases, Perkins claimed that the court ruling in favour of equal marriage could lead to “revolution”.