Herman Cain with CNN’s Piers Morgan (h/t: Rex Wockner)
On issues from evolution to climate change, the members of the GOP presidential class of 2012 (with one notable exception) have demonstrated a shocking contempt for science, dismissively tossing aside research-tested, reality-based scientific consensus and deciding instead to stick their collective heads in the sand in order to please their increasingly deranged, reactionary base. Concerned people from across the political spectrum, from Jon Huntsman to Paul Krugman, are alarmed by a Republican Party that is, to quote Mr. Krugman, “aggresively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge.”
This certainly holds true where LGBT issues are concerned. The current crop of Republican candidates have practically tripped over themselves in a quest to outdo each other in the homophobia department. Michele Bachmann, who has made opposition to LGBT rights the central pillar of her entire political career, co-owns a clinic that claims, in the face of the overwhelming medical and scientific evidence to the contrary, to be able to “pray away the gay.” Newt Gingrich and RickPerry are both enthusiastic supporters of the American Family Association, a Southern Poverty Law Center-certified hate group that actively promotes the idea that sexual orientation can be changed. Rick Santorum, whose name will be forever linked with homophobic bigotry thanks to Dan Savage, most recently raised the horrifying specter of gay soldiers showering with other soldiers as a reason to reinstate the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and publicly embraced “ex-gay” propaganda.
The GOP’s current flavor of the month, Herman Cain, has eagerly jumped onto the anti-science, gay-hating bandwagon. Earlier this month, Cain told The View’s Joy Behar that he believes homosexuality is a personal choice and issued a challenge:
“You show me the science that says that it’s not [a choice], and I could be persuaded. Right now it’s my opinion against the opinion of others who feel differently. That’s just a difference of opinion.”
Truth Wins Out, Think Progress, and other groups hit back with the facts: sexual orientation is not a choice and cannot be changed. Ours isn’t an opinion, but scientific fact.
But apparently, to Cain, facts don’t matter — he’d rather cling to his anti-gay bigotry, thank you very much. In an interviewlast night with CNN’s Piers Morgan, Herman Cain reiterated his Stone-Age, anti-science views on homosexuality: “Although people don’t agree with me, I happen to think that [homosexuality] is a personal choice.” When Morgan told the candidate that his comments were just as ridiculous as a gay person telling Cain that he chose to be black, Cain bristled: “You know that’s not true. I was born black;” he added that race “doesn’t wash off.”
Herman, Herman, Herman. I, along with most LGBT people I know, happen to be a big fan of regular bathing. Trust me: I’ve bathed over 9,700 times in my 26 years and it hasn’t washed off — I’m still gay.
Mr. Cain thinking he’s entitled to an opinion on a matter of scientific fact is quaint at best. When one considers that he’s a member of an oppressed minority group turning around and contributing to the oppression of another minority group, Mr. Cain’s bigotry seems tragic, hypocritical, and profoundly sad. When one remembers that Herman Cain is seeking the office of the Presidency of the United States, it becomes a cause for alarm. His dangerously unscientific views about LGBT people render him unfit for that office.
This is disgusting, even for pathetic hate group leader Peter “Porno Pete” LaBarbera. Despite the fact that NO credible source, by which I mean, NO credible, scientifically sound source links homosexuality to being sexually abused as a child, Peter got up today and decided to use the tragedy of the molestation CNN anchor Don Lemon experienced as a child in order to try to score points for his pigheaded, hateful agenda. Here’s Pete’s sub-headline:
Deluded out-and-proud ‘gays’ reject pedophilia as causing their sexual confusion
Slowly, with emphasis, Peter: I was never molested as a child, and my dad and I were just fine when I was younger. Wayne played lots of sports [while I was a musical gay...diversity!], was never molested, and has a fantastic relationship with his parents, who have been together for forty-one years. My parents have been together for almost thirty-six.
How’s your little theory feeling now?
CNN evening anchor Don Lemon has declared his homosexuality — to the surprise of few who have followed his biased reporting on homosexuality issues
Peter’s media gay-dar is GREAT, y’all. It’s almost like a glittery light goes off in his head.
What is perplexing is that Lemon, like so many self-styled “gay” men, apparently does not view his molestation as a major causative factor in his homosexual identity and behavior.
Because everybody who isn’t a childish wingnut understands that science [not Creashun Science, Pete] has conclusively shown that the two don’t have a damn thing to do with each other? Maybe this is what separates us, as journalists, from you, as Porno Pete.
To me, there is no greater proof of the perverse self-deception of homosexuality than to behold how sexually confused adults incorporate their victimization at the hands of pedophiles into their out-and-proud “gay” identity.
Yeah, just like all the straight people who were molested as children and somehow don’t claim that was what made them heterosexual…
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t pull the “child rape made people gay” card and then refuse to explain the thousands of straight men who were abused as children by Catholic priests. I mean, you can, if you’re a disingenuous wingnut, but The Smart Side Of The Internet is going to pay attention, correct, point and then laugh.
Which is to say — even before reading his book: ”Don, you are not ‘gay,’ but the victim of a homosexual child molester, who corrupted your mind, body and soul — and innocence — at a tender young age!”
Nope, he’s a gay guy who happens to have suffered childhood abuse, but who has made a happier, more successful, more beautiful life for himself than Peter LaBarbera ever will. How dare he cheapen and minimize the actual experiences of people who have had to live with sexual abuse they suffered as children to try to demonize gay people? Absolutely disgusting, even for such a common troll.
Don is so completely enthralled at being out, and you can hear it in his voice. We talked about the issues in the book, but also a lot about the closet in the media, in television journalism, and how his coming out might affect other, closeted TV anchors; what the impact will be in the black community and what it means for young people of color; and how it feels to now be out, on a show with his boyfriend and a gay radio host. Don got a little bit weepy on that last topic.
I stayed up an hour later than I had planned last night listening to it, because it was so enjoyable. There’s a moment about fifteen minutes into the first clip where Don starts talking about a phone call with his mother on the first day he came out publicly. She told him that his aunt had called asking why he was “airing his dirty laundry” in public, and that she had suggested that there were churches in Atlanta who could “counsel” Don about being gay. Don’s response was just amazing. He calmly explained that he has a beautiful, happy life, with a beautiful home and a happy boyfriend, and that quite frankly, his life is probably happier than those of the people who are urging him to seek “counseling.”
That’s one of the things that religious fundamentalists never can get through their thick skulls — that happy, healthy, well-adjusted gay people are just as happy, and often happier and more fulfilled than they are. We create beautiful lives, and the last thing we need is their “help.”
Yesterday, we congratulated and thanked CNN news anchor Don Lemon for courageously coming out of the closet, detailing his history of being sexually abused as a child, and telling the story of being a “double minority,” as a gay black man, in his new book Transparent. Later in the day, he sat on the other side of the anchor’s chair on his own network for his first television interview on the subject. I consider this Must See Teevee.
What a stellar role model he is. Oh, and by the way, did you notice that he used the phrase “pray away the gay”? Where did that phrase come from, I wonder?! So, if you’re out there reading, Don, thanks.
As Pam points out, the revelations in CNN anchor Don Lemon’s new book Transparent aren’t significant just because a major news anchor is coming out — though that is huge in and of itself and has the potential to help a lot of people — but also because he’s a gay black man, because “it will generate conversations that have only recently been broached about the double minority status of being gay and a person of color.” From The New York Times:
“People are going to say: ‘Oh, he was molested as a kid and now he is coming out.’ I get it,” he said.
Few national television news anchors or hosts have publicly acknowledged being gay. Rachel Maddow is perhaps the best known. Her MSNBC colleague, Thomas Roberts, has also come out as gay.
Mr. Lemon has not made a secret of his sexual orientation in his work life; many of his CNN co-workers and managers have long been aware that he is gay. But he still acknowledged that going public in his book carries certain risks.
“I’m scared,” he said in a telephone interview. “I’m talking about something that people might shun me for, ostracize me for.”
[...]
Even beyond whatever effect his revelation might have on his television career, Mr. Lemon said he recognized this step carried special risk for him as a black man.
“It’s quite different for an African-American male,” he said. “It’s about the worst thing you can be in black culture. You’re taught you have to be a man; you have to be masculine. In the black community they think you can pray the gay away.” He said he believed the negative reaction to male homosexuality had to do with the history of discrimination that still affects many black Americans, as well as the attitudes of some black women.
That’s what it takes to break down those walls, though. The more that people like Don speak up and tell their stories, the more the “taboo” is broken, and ultimately, the more people it helps. Incidentally, Don is dedicating his book in honor of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who committed suicide last fall after being bullied. So congratulations and a big thank you go out to Don Lemon, that he may be an inspiration to gay kids who feel alone, and especially to African-American gay kids. Hell, living with courage and integrity is a lesson for everyone.
This of course broke just after news came out that high ranking NBA exec Phil Welts had come out, breaking another barrier in another world where too few have been broken up to this point.
I’m sure some wingnuts will react to this, so when they do, I’ll share them if they’re funny.
We had fun this morning with Victoria Jackson’s latest column, where she admirably typed words in what appears to be the English language, about how scared she is of the Muslims, and also the gays.
Now, she has gone on CNN to defend herself, and as I said above, she is the best Religious Right spokeswoman I’ve ever seen. Unlike the polished, media-savvy voices of Tony Perkins and Maggie Gallagher, Victoria Jackson instead wears the fearful, uneducated confusion that informs the Christian right worldview on her sleeve. Brava, Madam!
Interesting report on CNN in light of the study that found that gay couples in the South are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts elsewhere:
Even after passage of repeal by the U.S. Senate, gullibility, melodrama, and false balance seem to be the rule rather than the exception in media coverage of the U.S. armed services’ ban against LGBT servicemembers.
On John King, USA last night, CNN ignored overwhelming expert analysis and public opinion. Instead, producers promised on their blog that they would present the constitutional rights of LGBT servicemembers as a potential threat to immigrant rights (which the producers confused with “Hispanic” rights). When it came time for televised “debate,” gay vet Alex Nicholson of Servicemembers United was brought in — and thrown to the wolves instead of real experts. Nicholson’s rival in the debate was Peter Sprigg, an operative for the Family Research Council hate group who believes that all homosexuals should be imprisoned.
Host John King helped Sprigg conceal his notorious position on imprisonment, which was relevant not only to the DADT debate, but also to Sprigg’s credibility as a debate participant. King also made no effort to fact-check FRC’s long list of DADT-related defamations despite the ready availability of refutations to FRC’s lies.
In what alternate universe does CNN exist, where it is deemed appropriate for a defender of constitutional rights and military readiness to be thrown into debate with a notoriously dishonest and defamatory opponent who wants said defenders thrown in prison? CNN’s “debate” was a deliberate and reckless mismatch between a well-funded and uncivil hate group, and just one of several expert authorities that have proven the harm done by Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to the U.S. armed services.
Also last night, The ED Show on MSNBC did a somewhat better job: The producers presented a solid line of GOP leaders who oppose repeal, before handing to GOProud, a tiny but well-funded group that advocates a transparently false equivalence between Democratic and Republican levels of support for repeal of DADT.
All this melodrama and manufactured hype for GOProud is counterproductive; what TV viewers need are facts:
On December 15, the House of Representatives approved repeal bill H.R. 2965 in a vote of 250 to 175. Of the No votes, 160 were Republican and just 15 were Democrat. Of the Yes votes, 235 were Democrat and just 15 were Republican.
On December 18, the Senate voted 65-31 for repeal; all of the No votes were Republican; just eight Republicans voted for repeal.
Despite the clear numbers and despite FRC’s relentless history of disproven lies, both news channels are wasting viewers’ time with he-said-he-said dogfights instead of hard facts.
In an interview/piece about the new hate crime statistics and the fact that gays are the most likely to be targeted in hate crimes of ANY minority, Dan Savage said the following, to a CNN anchor:
“There are no ‘two sides’ to the issue of LGBT rights. Right now one side is really using dehumanizing rhetoric. The Southern Poverty Law Center labels these groups as hate groups and yet the leaders of these groups, people like Tony Perkins, are welcomed onto networks like CNN to espouse hate directed at gays and lesbians. And similarly hateful people who are targeting Jews or people of color or anyone else would not be welcome to spew their bile on CNN.”
THANK YOU. Dear everyone supportive of LGBT people who ever appears in the mainstream media: Keep Saying It. The Family Research Council and other groups who appear on CNN and other networks are hate groups. And Dan’s exactly right: there are NO “two sides” here.
