Perkins: Groups Gave Shooter “License” To Attack Family Research Council

“Corkins was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations ‘hate groups’ because they disagree with them on public policy,” the Family Research Council head told reporters Thursday.

Family Research Council head Tony Perkins addresses reporters on Thursday.

The head of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, today said the Southern Poverty Law Center and other groups gave “license” to a shooter who injured a security guard at the conservative religious policy and lobbying organization’s headquarters on Wednesday.

In a news conference outside the Family Research Council’s building addressing the incident and the arrest of the alleged shooter, Floyd Corkins II, Perkins said: “Let me be clear that Floyd Corkins was responsible for firing the shots yesterday that wounded one of our colleagues … but Corkins was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations ‘hate groups’ because they disagree with them on public policy.”

Perkins, the group’s president, added that he “appreciates” those LGBT organizations that issued a statement of condemnation for the shooting but asked those groups “to join us in calling for an end to the reckless rhetoric that I believe led to yesterday’s incident.”

MORE: The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Perkins’s statement “outrageous.