MRC's Knight reportedly said efforts to lift ban on gays and lesbians in military will result in a "Pearl Harbor moment"

Summary: The Media Research Center's Robert Knight, who is also a columnist for Townhall.com and Human Events, was quoted in The Washington Times as saying that the efforts of activists to lift the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military will lead to "a Pearl Harbor moment." Knight has previously compared the attacks on Pearl Harbor to the legalization of same-sex marriage in particular.

In a November 21 Washington Times article about President-elect Barack Obama's plan to lift the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military, Robert Knight, director of the Media Research Center's Culture and Media Institute, was quoted as saying that the efforts of activists to lift the ban will lead to "a Pearl Harbor moment." Knight is also a columnist for Townhall.com and Human Events.

According to the Times, Knight said: "Homosexual activists are overconfident because they have not yet seen a counterforce emerge as occurred in 1993. ... But as the threat grows stronger, we will see groups forming and the resistance building." Knight was then quoted as saying: "Americans go about their business and are not activists until they have a Pearl Harbor moment. That has yet to happen, but it will." The Times also reported that Knight said most Americans "are unaware that gay activists have the military in their gun sights."

Knight previously compared the legalization of same-sex marriage to the attack on Pearl Harbor. In his June 17 Townhall.com column, Knight wrote that former Human Rights Campaign executive director Elizabeth Birch "not[ed] that the natural elements had remained intact in the Bay State [Massachusetts] following the beginning of 'gay marriage.' She assured the young audience, which soaked up her utterly illogical argument, that the 'sun still came out, the birds still chirped and the flowers still bloomed,' or something to that effect." Knight continued: "Well, the birds chirped and the flowers bloomed in Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941, as the American fleet lay smoldering."

Knight has also previously stated that "the endgame of the gay rights activists, and I've said this before, is the criminalization of Christianity," and claimed that "gay rights advocates are laying the foundation for the criminalization of Christianity, Judaism and every other religion that preaches God's view of sexual morality."

From The Washington Times November 21 article:

"Homosexual activists are overconfident because they have not yet seen a counterforce emerge as occurred in 1993," said Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute at the Media Research Center, an organization that seeks to balance perceived liberal bias in mainstream news coverage.

"But as the threat grows stronger, we will see groups forming and the resistance building," he said. "Americans go about their business and are not activists until they have a Pearl Harbor moment. That has yet to happen, but it will."

He added that most Americans "are unaware that gay activists have the military in their gun sights."

—T.A.