This will bring a smile to your face: today, CNN’s Carol Costello reported on the furor surrounding the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mix It Up at Lunch Day program. As I wrote yesterday, the American Family Association — a certified anti-gay hate group — is claiming that the event, which aims to combat school bullying by encouraging students to break out of their cliques and talk to each other, is part of a nefarious plot to spread the so-called “homosexual lifestyle.”
Costello asked AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer to explain his group’s opposition to anti-bullying efforts. After Fischer alleged that the SPLC was out to destroy anti-gay hate groups like the AFA, Costello questioned whether or not Fischer had his own agenda, given his history of wildly extreme anti-gay rhetoric. Fischer launched into his usual song and dance routine about how Adolf Hitler was a closeted gay man and most of his Stormtroopers were also gay men because straight men weren’t willing to perform the savage acts the Nazis demanded of them. (Both claims are false, by the way.)
So far, nothing new. But then, something remarkable happened. Costello challenged Fischer, saying that his remarks would be considered hate speech “by most people’s standards.” Fischer responded by saying the SPLC was “bullying” the groups like the AFA , which just want to educate the public about the supposed “health risks“ of homosexuality. (Another false claim, of course.) But Costello wouldn’t have it. Saying “That’s just not true,” Costello abruptly cut Fischer off and ended the interview. “Thanks for sharing your views, I guess,” she told him.
Awesome.
Watch the video below, courtesy of Right Wing Watch:
UPDATE: Equality Matters has the full interview. In the beginning of the interview, Fischer even compares the Mix It Up at Lunch Day to cyanide-laced Halloween candy. Seriously.
Great interview by Carol. That is exactly the way such crackpots should be treated. The media should not pretend they have a valid point when they lie and smear with hate speech. Good for Carol for calling out Fischer and telling it like it is.
Now THAT is real journalism — not allowing people to lie. It’s is great to see it for a change.
I can barely believe that Fischer has the gall to spout the b.s. that he does; I thought this was 2012; has mankind really moved beyond the ’30′s ?
And, good for Carol, in terminating this disgusting man’s interview !
What if Hitler *was* homosexual? Stalin and Mao were straight. Is this idiot prepared to campaign against heterosexuality? Is Fischer straight? Doesn’t that make him (okay, potentially) a brutal murderer, too?
But I’m not sure Costello was right to cut him off. Yes, he’s loathsome, and conceivably the best policy with such scum is not to book them for interviews to begin with.
But is she prepared to cut off Mitt Romney if (i.e., when) he lies to her, too?
Hitler was sexually f–ked up, but he wasn’t gay. Ernst Roehm, who was head of the SA (storm troopers) until he was executed on the Night of Long Knives, was a homosexual and there were a number of gay men within his circle as well as the SA, but that, of course, was irrelevant to their crimes and brutality. Most of the members of the SA, just like the rest of the murder machine in the Third Reich were heterosexual, which has nothing to do with their war crimes or ‘ethnic cleansing’ insanity.
If Rush Limburger can cut off people telling the truth, surely Carol Costello should be able to cut off people who are lying.
YOU GO CAROL!!!!!!!!!