Greg welcomes guests Tom Shillue, Chris Bedford and Jonna Spilbor.
GLAAD Gives Alec Baldwin a Pass on Homophobic Rant, Andrew Sullivan Says It's Criminal
GLAAD, the organization dedicated to defending the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, acted swiftly after learning of Alec Baldwin's latest homophobic rant.
The group allowed Baldwin to use its web site to apologize and/or attempt damage control, essentially shouting, "you're already forgiven." Here's the group's official response to Baldwin's apology over his hateful Tweets directed at a British journalist:
Alec Baldwin is making it clear that the intent behind his tweets does not excuse his language, especially at a time when there were 11 incidents of violence against gay men in New York City just last month. As we all work to end such senseless acts of violence, allies like Baldwin are right to use these moments to reinforce support for the community and LGBT equality.
Compare that to the group's reaction when director Brett Ratner said, "rehearsal is for fags" during a press interview. Ratner lost his coveted gig producing the Oscars and subsequently went through a GLAAD-approved re-education process culminating in a PSA shoot on behalf of gay rights.
Here's GLAAD's official statement regarding the Ratner incident:
Following meetings with GLAAD as well as outrage from community members and allies, Ratner issued an apology and today resigned as producer of the 84th Annual Academy Awards. GLAAD and Ratner are working to convene public discussions featuring leaders in the entertainment industry about promoting fair and accurate inclusions of LGBT people and stories. The discussions will address anti-LGBT jokes and slurs in films and on television today as well as their trickle-down effect into popular culture. The first event will take place in coming weeks with additional discussions to take place over the next three years. Additional details to follow.
Let's not forget how GLAAD handled CNN anchor Roland Martin's case. Martin, who is black, was castigated by GLAAD for a series of Tweets regarding a soccer player that were likely meant as humorous, not mean spirited.
Martin apologized. He also lost his job at CNN thanks, in part, to pressure from groups like GLAAD.
Not everyone who supports gay rights is following GLAAD's lead in the Baldwin case. Andrew Sullivan called out Baldwin in no uncertain terms on his web platform.
This is not just hate speech; it's a specific call for other people to physically attack a gay man. It's a call to violence against a specific person, which, last time I checked, was a crime. He's a pro-gay liberal, so he may get a pass for this. He shouldn't.
Sounds like Baldwin just did. Meanwhile, a Texas teenager is still in jail for making a threat on Facebook he said was an innocent joke.
Baldwin deleted his offensive tweets and briefly shut down his account (it's been restored). Nevertheless, here is the rant in full:
The Today Show downplayed the homophobia from Baldwin rant, as did CNN. However, on his personal Twitter account, Anderson Cooper pointed out the obvious, well-known hypocrisy regarding how these kinds of incidents are dealt with in the media.
While acknowledging the hypocrisy is a step in the right direction, Cooper isn't exactly innocent himself, as Michelle Malkin pointed out on Twitter.
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| Jamie Colby and Kimberly Guilfoyle |
Rich Ferraro's title at GLAAD is VP of Communications. He is the head of his department, for what that's worth. I have some advice I would like to offer so that he can do a better job from now on.
Before you make an attempt to "communicate" you really should have a clue as to what is going on. A good first step would be to communicate with the other departments of your own organization. For instance, if Ferraro had taken the time to check with Marc Honaker over in Development about the guest list for their annual awards banquet (held last weekend) he would have saved himself quite a bit of humiliation this weekend.
Last Saturday night was the 24th Annual Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Awards banquet. This was the gala affair that featured Madonna, dressed up as a Scout, presenting GLAAD's Vito Russo Award to Anderson Cooper.
Fox News anchors Kimberly Guilfoyle ("The Five") and Jamie Colby ("America’s News HQ") attended the event and posed for a picture. Seeing this picture from the event caused Rich Ferraro to throw a hissy. He issued the following statement to Equality Matters, the LGBT arm of Media Matters for America:
If Kimberly and Jamie expect to attend future GLAAD events, they will first need to sit down with us to discuss Fox News' embarrassing, biased and misinformed coverage of LGBT issues. The invitation is open. Fox News's track record on LGBT issues is abysmal, and it makes no sense to me why any LGBT people or allies would want to be a part of that.
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| Rich Ferraro |
In addition to posting Ferraro's statement, Equality Matters did what everybody associated with MMFA does: obsess about the pure evil that is Fox News. Of course, none of the thoughtcrimes they listed had anything to do with Guilfoyle or Colby. But guilt by association is the bedrock of MMFA's strategy, as it is with most of the Left. The implication was that Guilfoyle and Colby were little more than party crashers who had no business being there at all. How dare those huzzies crash our party!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As intended, the statement made headlines. And that's when Ferraro's embarrassment happened. TVNewser had obtained an email from GLAAD director of creative development Marc Honaker urging a current FNC staffer to "ask [Roger] Ailes or Suzanne [Scott] to buy a table for FNC." Honaker, who once worked for Bill O'Reilly's show, said in the email that Colby and Guilfoyle had expressed an interest in attending the banquet, writing, "We'd love to have lots of FNCers!" Oops! Awkward...
Once this evidence hit the internet it wasn't long before Ferraro was forced to calm himself and issue another statement, this time to Huffington Post:
"My earlier statement was a reaction to FOX News' coverage of LGBT people and not any individual journalists. A GLAAD executive did invite Kimberly and Jamie to the GLAAD Media Awards, and we were happy to have them, with the belief that they signaled a change in the way Fox News would cover LGBT issues. But the next day, we had a flurry of reports that Fox News let anti-gay activist Tony Perkins make the false and dangerous claim on national television that 'evidence' shows that being gay is 'overwhelmingly negative to both the individual and society.'
It was not my intention to offend Kimberly or Jamie. Part of our work at GLAAD is to raise awareness and visibility of allies from all walks of life, particularly among the growing number of conservatives who support LGBT people, and we look forward to working with voices like Kimberly, Jamie, and any other allies at FOX News to accomplish that."
He mentioned Guilfoyle and Colby by name and yet he claims that he didn't intend to offend them... Umm, okay. Well at least it's nice to know that they are now official friends and allies.
