posted
(I don't know what's getting into me. I didn't even try to argue myself out of posting this.)
This article is fascinating - no surprise that O'Reilly - or just about any other commentator out there - could be guilty of such hypocrisy. But to do it all in the space of one show is incredible even for him.
quote:O'Reilly scolds guest who outed gays, then calls judge a lesbian
By John Cook Tribune staff reporter Published July 21, 2004
Fox News Channel's star talk-show personality, Bill O'Reilly, says he is uncomfortable with the practice of outing gay political figures--except, it seems, when he is doing the outing.
On his show Monday night, O'Reilly chastised guest Michael Rogers for maintaining a Web site publicizing the names of gay staffers working for politicians who oppose gay marriage.
"We're uneasy with this kind of exposition," O'Reilly said. "Somebody's personal sex life should have nothing to do with any kind of a policy."
But on the same show--and for at least the third time in the last year--O'Reilly described one of the justices on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court as a lesbian, a claim that the justice herself, through a spokeswoman, denies.
On shows in November, last week, and again on Monday, O'Reilly has referred to "the lesbian judge on the Supreme Court who dissented" in the court's landmark ruling in favor of gay marriage.
O'Reilly has never named the judge, but of the three dissenting justices in that case, only one--Justice Martha B. Sosman--is a woman.
posted
She denies being a lesbian, and so far O'Reilly appears to be the only person insisting that she is.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
MPH, my comments were based on both questions having "no" for an answer. If that's not the case, then technically he wasn't "outing" her. But the quote says she's denied it.
If she's publicly acknowledged she's a lesbian, then it might be appropriate to bring into the discussion, if nothing else for assigning credibility to the dissenting opinion. But the whole idea makes me uncomfortable.
posted
You know, I'm sure that this is all the liberal media's fault. It'll take me a little while to find a way to justify that, of course, but with a little work we should be able to pin it on them. Damned liberal media!
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I just think that the idea of some monolithic "liberal media" is something of a boogyman, mph. There is bound to be bias in news reporting--it's a human endeavor, after all--and a person would be foolish to ingest any news story uncritically, regardless of the source. Some media outlest skew left, others skew right. Taking all of them with a grain of salt, but not automatically dismissing them because you're of a different ideological position than the source, will result in one's being a much better informed person, I think.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
So, wait, he's calling a woman who voted against gay marriage a lesbian? How does that make sense?
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I heard him call her a lesbian on talk radio. But I didn't necessarily think he meant it as a slam -- it didn't come across in a derogatory way, and I assumed that because he said it, she was already "out" -- common knowledge. I didn't know that she wasn't one...
posted
If a gay judge votes against gay marriage, then obviously then real gay people don't want to be married, and the whole gay marriage thing is a plot by some liberals and greedy lawyers to gain power and money.
Besides, O'Reilly and Logic are not well aquainted.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:the whole gay marriage thing is a plot by some liberals and greedy lawyers to gain power and money.
This is true.
*Swears solemnly*
Recent surveys show that the only demographic group that shows 100 percent support for gay marriage is...
divorce lawyers!
Hey, what's wrong with making a buck?
.....
Anyway, O'Reilly has no business complaining about anyone else engaging in "outing" - either it's wrong or it isn't. He can't have it both ways.
And I'm in the "it's wrong" camp. I don't like it as a tactic on the left, which is where it gets used more.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Or, O'Rielly is so conservative he assumes that any woman who works must not be married, and any woman who is unmarried past the age of 27 must be either ugly or a lesbian, or both.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Hmm, are people here saying it's OK to use O'Reilley's tactics against him? If so, O'Reilly can justify much of what he does on the same grounds.
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