Tony Perkins

Anthony Richard Perkins (born March 20, 1963) is an American politician and Southern Baptist pastor, who has served as president of the Family Research Council since 2003.

Previously, he was a police officer and television reporter.

Perkins was born and raised in the northern Oklahoma city of Cleveland and graduated in 1981 from Cleveland High School.

He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Liberty University.

He later earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

After college, Perkins entered the United States Marine Corps.

Following his tour of duty, he became a reserve deputy with the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office and also worked with the U.S. State Department's Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program instructing hostage negotiation and bomb disposal to hundreds of police officers from around the world.

After the federal contract for the anti-terrorism program ended, Perkins left law enforcement to work for KBTR, the Baton Rouge TV station owned by then-State Representative Woody Jenkins.

At KBTR, Perkins opened a news division.

Perkins won an open seat in the Louisiana House representing District 64 (the eastern Baton Rouge suburbs, including part of Livingston Parish) when he defeated Democrat Herman L. Milton of Baker 63% to 37% in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 21, 1995.

He was elected on a conservative platform of strong families and limited government.

Four years later, he was reelected without opposition.

From 1996 to 2004, he served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives.

Perkins opposed casino gambling in Louisiana, calling a 1996 plan to restrict the location of gambling riverboats to one side of the river, "putting lipstick on a hog".

It doesn't make the bill any better, it just looks a little better." Perkins was described as "staunchly anti-abortion" by Public Broadcasting Service which also credited him with working on law and order and economic development issues while in the state house. Perkins was instrumental in increasing state regulation of Louisiana abortion clinics; he sponsored a law to require state licensing and sanitary inspections.

According to the Baptist Press, Perkins' "concern about the influence of the homosexual movement" led to his involvement in the 1998 founding of the Louisiana Family Forum, a conservative, faith-oriented, anti-abortion, and non-profit group.

He unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002.

Perkins ran for the United States Senate in 2002 as a social and religious conservative Republican.

Louisiana's then-Governor, Murphy J. Foster Jr., and the National Republican Senatorial Committee backed other candidates.

Perkins finished in fourth place in the nonpartisan blanket primary with just under 10% of the vote.

The Democratic incumbent, Mary Landrieu, was re-elected in the general election against another Republican, Suzanne Haik Terrell.

In September 2003, Perkins withdrew from the race for Louisiana state insurance commissioner to become the president of the conservative Christian Family Research Council (FRC).

He replaced Ken Connor.

In addition to his duties as president of the FRC, Perkins hosts a radio program, Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.

He retired from the legislature in 2004, fulfilling a promise to serve no more than two terms.

While in office, Perkins authored legislation to require Louisiana public schools to install Internet filtering software, to provide daily silent prayer, and to prevent what he termed "censorship of America's Christian heritage".

Perkins also authored the nation's first covenant marriage law, a voluntary type of marriage that permits divorce only in cases of physical abuse, abandonment, adultery, imprisonment or after two years of separation.

Perkins was involved in the 2005 controversy over the disconnection of life support for Terri Schiavo, a woman who had been in a "persistent vegetative state" for a number of years.

After a final court order permitted Schiavo's husband to remove her feeding tube and thereby cause her to die, Perkins stated, "we should remember that her death is a symptom of a greater problem: that the courts no longer respect human life."

In October 2008, Perkins called the passage of California Proposition 8 (which prohibited same-sex marriage in the state) "more important than the presidential election", adding that the United States has survived despite picking bad presidents in the past but "we will not survive if we lose the institution of marriage."

In 2010, Perkins dismissed the SPLC hate group designation as a political attack on the FRC by a "liberal organization" and as part of "the left's smear campaign of conservatives".

Perkins was floated as a potential Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate against Mary Landrieu in the 2014 election.

Despite strongly criticising Bill Cassidy, the main Republican challenger to Landrieu, as "pretty weak on the issues", Perkins said in an interview in January 2014 that he would not run against Landrieu.

He did however express interest in running for David Vitter's U.S. Senate Seat, should Vitter be elected Governor of Louisiana in 2015.

Vitter lost the election and announced he would not run for re-election to the Senate, but Perkins declined to run in the 2016 election and endorsed John Fleming for the seat.

On May 14, 2018, he was appointed to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and on June 17, 2019, the Commission elected him Chairman.

On May 14, 2018, he was appointed as one of nine commissioners to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

His appointment was opposed by the Hindu American Foundation for his track record of "hateful stances against non-Christians."

On June 17, 2019, the USCIRF elected Perkins as chair for the commission.

On June 16, 2020, he became the USCIRF vice chair.