MSNBC Rejects Ad Calling on Network to Stop Interviewing Hate Group Leader
15About the Author
Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth” (Haworth, 2003). In 2010, Besen was awarded the “Visionary Award” at the Out Music Awards for organizing the American Prayer Hour, an event which shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
Perkins is one of the most vile homophobes/hatemongers out there. I am a loss as too why MSNBC continues too use him.
So you want to silence him? Doesn’t have a right to his opinion as much as you?
Rich:
He is a member of a hate group and has been shown to grossly distort research and simply make things up, regardless of facts or truth.
Thus, he has surrendered his credibility and should not be a trusted media source. This is not about “opinion” and it is absurd to suggest that it is. What we ask for is that opinions are grounded in facts. Perkins is a proven liar and thus the media should find more reliable and credible spokespeople.
There is no right to be a television talking head. The media should ensure that only honest sources are elevated on their platforms.
Rich, he has a right to his opinion but he doesn’t have a right to express it on TV.
Rich, please, if only this would silence him. The idea that you need to go on cable television in order to express your opinion is just stupid.
At this point in time, he has the right to his opinions, but that does not mean that the network has an obligation to give him a platform, especially considering his history of lies and hate.
Hopefully in the future hate speech laws will make such opinions as his illegal, but until that happens, the networks need to realize that they have no obligation to giove someone with opinions so heinous a public voice any more than they do the leader of the American NAZI party or the Grand Dragon of the KKK. Perkins is just a fanatic whose words inspire hatred in for whole groups of people, and thus, no, his words should not be protected.
[...] 23 times since his group officially earned the “hate group” moniker. And as Wayne noted yesterday, the network recently rejected an ad calling on MSNBC to stop allowing this notorious [...]
The reason Tony Perkins has been on MSNBC so much is because Chris Matthews likes him so much. He is often on Matthews’ Hardball & Matthews has come right out & said how much he likes & respects Tony. Exactly WHY Chris Matthews feels this way is the bigger question. So if you want to ask MSNBC what they are doing putting this guy on the air, best to direct your questions to Chris Matthews.
Rich – I think some clarification is in order here. It’s not that anyone wants to silence Mr. Perkins. Rather, it’s that we want respected news outlets such as MSNBC to stop referencing him as an “expert” when he is interviewed on television. Tony Perkins is anything but an expert on LGBT issues or sexuality in general. Whenever he opens his mouth, he spews forth lies and distortions. By putting him on as an “expert” for the opposition, news outlets like MSNBC unintentionally give him and his views credence and respectability which they should not. That is what this is about. This is not about silencing Mr. Perkins. He has many outlets to voice his opinions (internet, television, radio, print media). Media outlets just should not label him or consider him an “expert.” That’s all.
I side with the opinion of blogger Alvin McEwen (hope I’m not distorting this too badly, my friend.) No, let the networks bring him on. Just highlight the fact that he IS a hate group leader at the beginning so that the audience is aware of it and can be aware that his “facts” are distorted. Put him in proper context, don’t let him trot out his vitriol unchecked.
“So you want to silence him?” Of course! Don’t you?
MSNBC is a liberal network. If anything they should be criticized for trying to smear alternative viewpoints, not for supporting alternative viewpoints.
Oh, Facts, if only they were a liberal network- we could sure use one in the vast conservative wasteland that is TV news.
“MSNBC is a liberal network.” Thanks for the laugh!
And why do you think it’s the job of “liberal networks” to “support” “alternative viewpoints”? Is that also the job of “conservative networks”, or are only “liberal networks” supposed to have no focus? And shouldn’t there just be “networks” that simply “support” the truth? Or, you know, “facts”?
And what is an “alternative viewpoint”? Because that sounds like a codeword for lies, bigotry and stupidity. Who taught you that one? Don’t you really just mean an “alternative viewpoint” to the truth? Why not say it, then?
Man, you make it necessary to use an awful lot of scare-quotes. Why don’t you just express yourself like a normal person? You might as well, since you couldn’t possible make the agenda you’re already failing to disguise any more transparent.
[...] thanks to Faithful America for its campaign calling on MSNBC to drop Perkins as a contributor. Thanks also to GLAAD for launching its [...]