Texas GOP Rep Suggests Gay Marriage is to Blame for Baltimore Riots

Since Sodom and Gomorrah, religious zealots have blamed natural disasters and even terrorist acts on God's judgment of homosexuality or advancing gay rights. With that in mind, it was no big surprise Tuesday when a Republican U.S. Representative from Texas linked the riots that are currently tearing the city of Baltimore apart to gay marriage, Right Wing Watch reports.

Speaking as a guest on hate group leader Tony Perkins' "Washington Watch" program on Family Research Council Radio, Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX), who has a 0% rating by the Human Rights Campaign, claimed that it's not issues with police brutality that is causing the Baltimore riots. He blamed the riot-inciting poverty on the breakdown of the family, which he in turn blames on same-sex marriage.

"Let's talk about poverty, for instance," Flores said. "The single best indicator of whether or not a child is going to be in poverty or not is whether or not they were raised by a two-parent household or a single parent household, so the breakdown of the family has contributed to poverty."

"Look at what is going on in Baltimore today," he continued. "You see the issues that are raised there. Healthy marriages are the ones between a man and a woman because they can have a healthy family and they can raise children in a way that's best for their future, not only socially but psychologically, economically, from a health perspective. There is nothing like traditional marriage that does that for a child. Each of us have a mother and a father and there is no way to get around that."

Flores has a history of involvement in anti-gay causes. He supports a federal marriage amendment to prevent same-sex marriage and wants to protect anti-same-sex marriage opinions as free speech. He also co-sponsored the State Marriage Defense Act that lets the state definition of marriage supersede the federal definition.

He has a 100% rating from the American Conservative Union.