Guess who’s anti-gay and invited to dinner?

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI – In the vein of détente summits of
yore, if you will, Jennifer Chrisler, of the pro-gay-marriage Family
Equality Council, has invited Tony Perkins, of the notoriously anti-gay Family Research
Council, to break bread at her home to try to “open his heart a little
bit.”

Chrisler extended the invitation after Perkins’ May 24
appearance on CNN, where he said he wasn’t going to be silent while gay people
tried to redefine marriage in the US, change what his children are taught in
school and what religious organizations can do.

Asked by CNN’s Brooke Baldwin if he’d ever been to the
home of a gay couple, Perkins said he had not.

Chrisler’s response: “I would like to extend an open
invitation for you and your family to visit my home and have dinner with my
spouse and children with the full hope that you will witness the love that
exists in our families.”

Perkins’ May 28 response, read out on CNN: “My wife
and I will be glad to respond when we receive the invitation to find a time
that works.”

Chrisler told CNN that she didn’t necessarily expect him
to accept but says that if the dinner does come to pass, it’d be great for Perkins
to get “a glimpse” into the lives of the one million gay and lesbian
parents who raise two million children in the US.

“It’s not one family here or there; it’s a
significant number of kids we’re talking about,” Chrisler points out.

“What bothers me is when people who haven’t taken
the time to know me, and to know my children and to know my values, talk about
me and then espouse hateful rhetoric that my kids hear, that the children like
them hear.”

Watch excerpts of CNN’s interviews with Perkins and
Chrisler here.