Washington Post Blasted for Anti-Gay Column

The Washington Post is taking a drubbing from critics for running an anti-gay essay yesterday—which happened to be National Coming Out Day—that featured lines like this: "There is an abundance of evidence that homosexuals experience higher rates of mental health problems in general, including depression. However, there is no empirical evidence to link this with society's general disapproval of homosexual conduct." It's from Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council. He also thinks that homosexuality "qualifies as a behavior that is harmful to the people who engage in it and to society at large."

One small problem, writes Julie Millican at Media Matters. The very study that Perkins links to in order to prove his statement "completely undermines his bigoted claims." Those same researchers say that anti-gay discrimination "may help fuel" the higher rates of mental disorders. "The truly galling thing, of course," writes Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post, "is that Perkins is happy to share this opinion on any day of the year, but the WaPo thought that this would be a good thing to run on a day specifically given over to the support of the LGBT community." (More homosexuality stories.)