Robert W. Patterson, a right-wing commentator turned acting associate commissioner at the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Office of Strategic and Digital Communications, once railed against married women, homosexuality, and condoms, according to a series of clips gathered by liberal watchdog Media Matters for America. In a 2011 since-removed Washington Examiner op-ed, Media Matters reports, Patterson wrote that the government “has facilitated the movement of mothers out of the home economy and into the market economy, undermining the family as an economic unit, marriage as a lifelong partnership, and the well-being of children.”
He has also reportedly worked for two anti-gay organizations, criticized the American Psychiatric Association for not listing homosexuality as a mental disorder, and advocated for conversion therapy, a practice that has been resoundingly debunked. Media Matters also cites a report from The Philadelphia Inquirer, which summarized a piece Patterson co-wrote for the conservative journal Family in America. The piece, the Inquirer notes, summarizes recent family-related studies—and covers one study which claims that condom use deprives women of the “remarkable” chemicals in semen. The study also claims that “semen-exposed women” performed better on cognitive tasks.
Read it at Media Matters for America
