Right-Wing Activists: Gays Not “Best and Brightest”

While LGBT people have made progress against workplace discrimination, radio host Linda Harvey (pictured, left) and American Family Association leader Gary Glenn (right) say that's not a good thing.

Glenn, president of the antigay AFA's Michigan chapter, went on the equally antigay Harvey's radio show over the weekend to say gay people are not a good employment risk.

"What ridiculous folly to suggest that only those individuals who engage in homosexual behavior given all of its severe medical consequences constitute the best and the brightest," Glenn said. "It's not really bright to engage in behavior that puts you at dramatically higher risk of mental illness and substance abuse and AIDS and cancer and hepatitis, and according to various sources, premature death. ... So to suggest that engaging in that type of behavior defines someone as the best and brightest, which seems to be the line coming out of corporate America, is just ridiculous."

Harvey replied, "You're right. And higher rates of domestic violence and unstable relationships. I would not think of a homosexual person as a good employment risk, I just wouldn't."

One of the targets of Glenn's wrath was furniture maker Herman Miller, a major employer in Michigan, which has a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index and supported a gay rights ordinance in the city of Holland, saying the absence of discrimination helps companies attract highly qualified workers. The ordinance failed to pass the City Council last month, but its backers plan to bring it up again.

Harvey, founder of the right-wing ministry Mission America, has a history of antigay statements that includes a column written shortly after the passage of New York State's marriage equality law, in which she said the move will lead to "a perpetual pansexual pagan party" as well as "corruption of youth, revolt in congregations, suppression of parental rights, revision of language, disease, loss of employment and loss of life."

Listen to the interview, in which the two also rail against marriage equality, here.