O'Reilly, "Fair and Balanced" As Usual on Gays

I actually tuned in to O'Reilly last night – something I rarely do – to see how he would handle the hubbub surrounding his Tuesday night interview on Letterman.  What I got was a lot of preening and self-congratulatory blather that, frankly, wasn't worth bothering anyone else with.

But what I also got was more of Bill's ongoing, zoo-visitor-like fascination with the gays.

While he frequently covers all things gay, last night he was just getting around to the "battle" – cable news loves that word – over gay-rights activists' decision to (quite legally) post the names and addresses of Massachusetts citizens who chose to sign petitions that would put an antigay-marriage measure on the ballot.  (The Malcontent covered this breaking news about four months ago.)

O'Reilly was positively apoplectic about this, of course, and took the side of the man representing the "family" group.  (Aside: Do you think if it were made known to organizations like AFA that when we see a queer guy, we say, "Oh, he's family!" that they would quit bogarting that word?)  It was funny how Bill's fair-and-balanced take on this "battle" doesn't also include the thousands of potentially fraudulent signatures on the petitions.  But these things do slip the mind.

This being "The Factor," there was a lot more heat than light.  But if anything good came out of it, I suppose, it is that the additional traffic Bill generated for knowthyneighbor.org produced a trickle-down effect of mouth-breathers who came to our site and goosed the readership stats.

I hope that at least they have been getting off on our "L Word" ad.

[Watch video – 7:17, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 7:17, WMV format, low bandwidth]

UPDATE: I should have mentioned O'Reilly's little "dolphin marriage" thing I kept at the end of the video clip.  I can't tell you how much the "slippery slope" argument pisses me off.  Anyone who truly believes this issue is a straight line to legalized marriage with aquatic mammals is not a serious participant in the debate.

Millions of my countrymen watch this idiot, and yet "Arrested Development" gets canceled.  Take me home now, Lord.

Comments

[hank]

He makes my blood boil.
Hopefuly he's headed for an onscreen meltdown.

[Roy]

Bill O'Reilly infuriates me. Period.

[Dan]

Sure didn't have to look far to find a right-wing version of Cedric 'n Bob all rolled into one, did we? :)

[Dan]

Incidentally, O'Reilly haters should love the Colbert Report. Hilarious Daily Show spinoff.

[Robbie]

I didn't think the Colbert Report would be any good when I first heard about it. The first few episodes were a bit crap really. But, over time, it's gottena lot better, and now I think it's hilarious. The more irritated you are with O'Reilly, the funnier Colbert Report is.

O'Reilly is actually fairly moderate about homosexuality. Sometimes his opinion is off, and sometimes he's surprisingly rational. Suppose it depends on the peripheral topic.

[Craig Ranapia]

To play devil's adovate for a moment, I'd have a pretty big problem with having my home address posted on the internet by the AFA because I signed a pro-gay rights petition. (I'm not sure how it works in Mass., but down here a PO Box or rural delivery route isn't valid on a petition for a citizen's initiated referenda.)

But I guess having a quasi-rational debate around privacy and political activism (endlessly fertile ground, don't ya think) doesn't goose the rating quite as well as 'Lock up your virgin sons and goldfish! Atilla The Homo is coming for you! '.

Oy...

[Kane]

I am amazed that this man is still on the air. We have only had access to his show in Canada in the last little while and to be honest look on in amazement while he spews out his thoughts and ideas. That he is taken seriously is both a joke and a sobering reflection on the state of the news.

[Malcontent]

As much as I hate America's FCC, I thank everything that is holy that we don't have to deal with the insufferable antics of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.

[Yum Yum]

Neal Boortz calls the FCC the Federal Censorship Commission. His site at boortz.com has a special FCC logo that makes the C look like the sickle from the Communist flag.

[North Dallas Thirty]

I should have mentioned O'Reilly's little "dolphin marriage" thing I kept at the end of the video clip. I can't tell you how much the "slippery slope" argument pisses me off. Anyone who truly believes this issue is a straight line to legalized marriage with aquatic mammals is not a serious participant in the debate.

But ignoring the fact or the people who put it forward, Mal, is hardly a winning strategy either, as has been proven in double-digit numbers of state constitutional amendments and their margins of approval.

Whether we like it or not, it is an issue, and it is on several levels a plausible argument.

If "social disapproval" is taken out of the argument, then the only things remaining as a barrier on marriage are "unrelated-by-blood consenting adults".

Now, to the activist arguments put forward by well-meaning gays in their attempts to unravel the marriage structure enough to let us in -- and the potential consequences:

Since biological issues like procreation or potential effects on children are not sufficient grounds for denying marital rights, there is no reason to deny marital rights to individuals who are related (or of different species, for that matter) -- so we're down to "consenting adults"

Since minors are already allowed to undergo major medical procedures that are a direct consequence of sex and capable of causing long-term issues, subject to their OWN consent and without criminal penalty for anyone involved, age laws are meaningless as a barrier, we're down to "consenting".

Since we've thrown out automatic barriers to "consent", such as age, the door is literally open for virtually anything to be open to consent, which could include, "Well, she didn't swim away when I did it....."

And, since the left is associated with animal-rights activists who believe that animals should have the same essential rights as humans, well......

Get the point?

What will kill the "slippery slope" argument, Mal, is when the gay-rights movement quits being hijacked to cover things that the American populace associates with behavior they don't want. It does no good for us to protest that we're not trying to promote underage or unprotected sex when our media outlets proclaim that parental consent laws are a "gay rights issue". As long as Lambda Legal is running around trying to get guys who pled guilty to soliciting AND intending to have sex in a public restroom off the hook, they lend plausibility to these arguments.

[Malcontent]

That there are a limited number of nonfallacious examples of the slippery slope doesn't mean that we should overlook the fact that such arguments are still a logical fallacy.

It is disingenuous to promote the slippery slope as the rule, when they are instead the exception.

People have tried to assign all kinds of causal relationships between gay marriage and a host of social ills, and so far -- to my knowledge -- not a single one has been proven demonstrably. In fact, one could argue quite the opposite.

[North Dallas Thirty]

Mal, I think you're looking at this problem backwards.

If O'Reilly wants to rant against dolphin marriage, fine. Let him say his piece and reply, as follows:

"You know, I think you're absolutely right. To make sure that legalization of gay marriage doesn't lead to marriages between humans and animals, let's propose a constitutional amendment to ban both beastiality and marriages between humans and animals. And in fact, just to be sure, let's do it so that this amendment makes clear that marriage can only exist between two consenting adults who aren't related by blood or family ties -- in other words, no beastiality, no incest, no child marriage, and no polygamy. Could you support that?"

Then sit back and watch his head explode.

You see, at that point, he's cornered. You have just said that you recognize that his argument has validity and are willing to react accordingly -- that is, rewrite fundamental law to make illegal all the things that he insists will happen if gay marriage is legalized and why it needs to continue to be banned. Moreover, you've done it without compromising a single thing related to gay rights.

He can either at that point agree with you or gut his own argument about what will happen if gay marriage is legalized.

The problem is, Mal, too many gay activists are too arrogant about those "slack-jawed cousin-fuckers"; they have to ignore them and dismiss their arguments as a matter of principle.

As we cowboys put it though, a lot of wrecks begin as a matter of principle.