Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and the Family Research Council: Pedophilia is a "homosexual problem"

Sorry, what century are we in again? Sometimes it's so hard to remember when things like the following come up.

On August 27, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly debated with Southern Poverty Law Center spokesperson Mark Potok about the Family Research Council on The O'Reilly Factor.

The segment was in reaction to the aftermath of the shooting of a security guard on August 15 at the FRC's headquarters in Washington, D.C., by a 28-year-old gunman. FRC president Tony Perkins claims that the SPLC's labelling of the FRC, a conservative Christian organization that opposes queer rights, as a "hate group" influenced the gunman's actions.

Potok attempted to counter numerous false and misinformed claims about homosexuality by the FRC, including that gay people are "fundamentally incapable of being good parents" and that pedophilia is a "homosexual problem". Both are outdated tactics used to demonize gay people.

Potok stated that "they are not pointing something out that's true. They're making a false allegation."

O'Reilly, however, defended the FRC's views, without any factual verification (which he admitted on air). He says he "thinks" that the statistics—slipping in that the statistics "could be wrong but we'll get them"—are that the "male-boy pedophilia problem is much more intense than the male-girl pedophilia problem".

(For those who somehow missed the memo, numerous studies including this 1991 report (that states no credible new data since 1978 has proven that homosexuals are any more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals) and this 1994 study have debunked the myth that pedophilia is linked to homosexuality.)

Check out the ridiculousness in the clip below.

And in other news, contrary to the content of the above clip, the year is now 2012. We'll get the statistics to support that later too.

You can follow Craig Takeuchi on Twitter at twitter.com/cinecraig. You can also follow the Georgia Straight's LGBT coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/StraightLGBT.