Also — John and I with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow!

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.

Let CNN and MSNBC know what you think.

People who haven’t dissected a pig since high school won’t want to miss MSNBC host Rachel Maddow’s dissection tonight of Ugandan Member of Parliament David Bahati, whose support for antigay genocide in that country has won him financial and political support from U.S. Republicans and evangelicals.

Part one of the interview:

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(Alternate video link via YouTube)

Part two:

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(Alternate video link via YouTube)

Background and primer on the Uganda-U.S. antigay genocide campaign:

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MSNBC anchor and reporter Thomas Roberts wants you to know that It Gets Better:

We like Thomas Roberts. A lot. We want him to succeed. And therefore, we hope that he hones his anchor skills a little bit … because today Roberts — like his colleagues at MSNBC and other news networks — unfortunately allowed the SPLC-certified hate group Family Research Council to perpetrate a few more deliberate lies.

This time, FRC touted its own selective and fraudulent poll of conservative veterans as a “scientific” and representative survey of the entire armed services.

To their credit, Roberts and retired U.S. Marine Brian Fricke did challenge Perkins’ insinuations that LGBT servicemembers have not already been serving honorably for decades — including when Perkins served.

The FRC is skillful at escaping scrutiny. It does so by firing defamations via numerous sources, never staying long enough on any single TV program to face accountability for its efforts to incite antigay violence and discrimination through deceitful statements, repetition of previously discredited claims, and weaselly worded responses to simple questions.

FRC is incapable of telling the plain truth; in particular, it is incapable of discussing homosexuality without resorting to defamation. FRC was designated a hate group for this reason, and it should not be given a television audience by reputable media unless the medium is fully prepared to discredit every one of FRC’s lies.

MSNBC’s Hardball this afternoon clarified false claims made Monday on the program by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

Host Chris Matthews belatedly told viewers the truth: That FRC based its antigay defamations not on findings by the legitimate American Academy of Pediatrics, but rather on the quackings of a tiny, antigay, Christian Right front group called the “American College of Pediatricians.”

As Truth Wins Out has often noted, the ACP was formed in 2002 as an offshoot of the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family. The ACP’s purpose is to confuse the public about professional medical research regarding sexuality, reproduction, and child mental health.

Its board has included several discredited and scandalous individuals, including zealous antigay ideologue George Rekers — the man caught returning from Europe with a rentboy early this year.

Unfortunately, Hardball’s admission comes too late: Few of the FRC and Focus fans who watched Monday’s program were watching today.

I just watched Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC. There was a debate between The Family Research Council’s (FRC) Tony Perkins and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Mark Potok. Perkins was mad because the SPLC rightfully just categorized FRC as an official, certified hate group.

The conversation shifted to pedophilia. Without flinching, Perkins smeared gay men by falsely saying they were more likely to molest children (Had he confused us with Catholic priests?) To back his bogus claim, he cited the discredited American College of Pediatricians.

This a small, anti-gay sham group that purposely tries to confuse itself with the credible American Academy of Pediatrics, which is supportive of LGBT people. The American College of Pediatricians is full of politically-motivated charlatans that do not produce legitimate peer review research on LGBT people. Meanwhile, The American Academy of Pediatrics is a qroup of researchers that actually does produce respected peer review science on homosexuality.

Citing the American College of Pediatricians on homosexuality is like citing the cigarette lobby on the health benefits of smoking. Of course, Tony Perkins knows this, yet he was still sleazy and dishonest enough to cite the group, proving SPLC’s original point that FRC is a certifiable hate group with the sole aim of demonizing LGBT people.

The American College of Pediatricians is now infamous because one of its chief researchers, George Rekers, was caught vacationing last spring with an escort he met on Rent Boy.com. (see picture above)

On the next Hardball, I sure hope Chris Matthews brings up the fact that Tony Perkins gets his “research” on homosexuality from a closeted hypocrite who was exposed as a fraudulent sex fiend.

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Adulterer Newt Gingrich, a possible 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said Sunday that he would not take part in a debate moderated by Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews.

“There’s no possibility that I would ever go to a debate and have Olbermann or Chris Matthews asking questions,” Gingrich said on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.

The former House speaker claimed the two talking heads were biased against Republican candidates. He called the two “relentlessly hostile” and “so left-wing.”

So? Little Newty can’t take a little opposition? What a wuss.

This is not the first time the petulant Gingrich has thrown a tantrum. He made a big stir when he shut down the U.S. government because President Bill Clinton made him sit coach on an airplane.

Who can blame Clinton? Would you want to sit next to Gingrich on a flight?

As he said, the only thing worse than the Democrats on gay issues is the GOP.

[h/t Joe]

This is why we love Rachel Maddow.

On Friday, I appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show.

We discussed Delaware’s bizarre and extreme GOP Senate nominee, Christine O’Donnell and her deep roots in the so-called “ex-gay” industry. As the director of The Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth (SALT), she had an ex-gay program led by Wade Richards. He came out of the closet and O’Donnell, like a loving Christian, abandoned him, showing that she is cruel, unforgiving and mean-spirited.