Fox News Radio host: Public schools are 'indoctrination centers' for LGBT rights

Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes on Thursday explained that marriage equality had only become more popular with Americans because the public schools were "indoctrination centers" for LGBT rights.

In an online interview, Starnes told Fox News host Patti Ann Browne that his conservative listeners and religious leaders were disappointed in President Barack Obama's decision to support same sex marriage.

"If you listened to the mainstream media, you would think that the entire country is supporting gay marriage," Starnes observed. "And I have news for folks, this is the 21st century. Thirty-two states have banned gay marriage. So when it goes before the people, when they get to vote on this issue, they're overwhelming in their opposition to gay marriage."

"The trend, according to every polling organization, has been toward favoring it," Browne pointed out.

"And the reason why is because the public school system," Starnes insisted. "Look at what's happening in public schools. They're indoctrination centers. Boys and girls are having their views formulated on gay marriage through the public school system, and that's why it is becoming generational. This is not what kids are being taught at home and that's why you're seeing, I think, this discrepancy. Younger people support gay marriage; their parents and grandparents do not."

According to an average of nine recent surveys, 50 percent of American adults agree with same sex marriage, while 45 percent disagree. The New York Times' Nate Silverestimated that opposition among adults in the U.S. has been decreasing at a rate of two to three percentage points per year since 2004.

A recent Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey found that 63 percent of those 31 and younger supported marriage equality. Support dropped to 51 percent for those aged 32 to 45, 39 percent for ages 46 to 66 -- and only 30 percent among ages 67 to 84.

But experts attribute the change in attitude to popular culture rather than the public school system. Those born after 1980 grew up with LGBT activists fighting for equal rights and celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and Melissa Etheridge coming out.

"Young people have a different idea of what is normal," University of Pennsylvania sociologist Frank Furstenberg told the Associated Press in 2004.

Watch this video from Fox News, uploaded by Media Matters on May 10, 2012.