LGBTQ news and entertainment
Out CNN anchor Don Lemon will be getting his own prime time show beginning March 10th.
Currently a weekend host of CNN Newsroom, Lemon will get a five week trial run of The Don Lemon Show, scheduled for Mondays at 10pm.
That time slot was recently held by AC360 Later.
CNN is currently experimenting with programming at the 10pm hour. In addition to Don Lemon’s new show, the network recently launched the docu-series ChicagoLand on Thursdays at 10pm.
Glenn Beck has decided that a very awkward interview moment by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this week was the workings of a CNN producer “sympathetic to the atheist plight,” Right Wing Watch reports.
The interview in question is from Tuesday, when Blitzer asked a woman who survived this week’s massive tornado in Oklahoma, “Did you thank the Lord?” In the interview, the woman laughed and responded, “I’m actually an atheist,” and the two shared a moment of awkward laughter.
To Beck, though, the question “just wasn’t natural,” and therefore must have been a plant by some producer who thought it was important “to point out that in the middle of the heartland, there are atheists there too.”
The fact is, this is the first “atheist” moment on TV I’ve seen in forever. So it’s not like CNN is pushing an atheist agenda.
Plus, I have to say, Wolf Blitzer is a serious professional. To think the moment was staged is to think very little of Blitzer and his very long, successful career.
(via Towleroad)
Bravo to CNN’s Carol Costello for being fair here. She gives Mr. Fischer the chance to share his views and then calmly calls him for what it is – hate speech.
This is from a discussion on CNN today about SPLC’s “Mix It Up Day” which is meant to promote tolerance and fight bullying.
I continue to ask the question: what is wrong with letting people be who they are, as God created them?
And while the US Constitution ensures the right of free speech, just because you CAN say something – even if it’s not true – doesn’t mean you SHOULD say it.
Here is just part of what Fischer says in the clip:
“…what parents need to understand, this is about pressuring public schools and students in public schools to accept homosexuality as a normal, healthy alternative to heterosexuality. It’s interesting to me they’re doing this on October 30, the day before Halloween, and what this program is, it’s like poisoned Halloween candy. Somebody takes a candy bar, injects it with cyanide, the label looks fine, it looks innocuous, it looks fine, it’s not until you internalize it that you realize how toxic it is. And we want parents to be aware that any program that any program that comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center is going to be toxic to their students’ moral health. “
(source)
A majority of Americans say they support legal recognition of same-sex marriage amid growing evidence that the public’s become more comfortable with gays and lesbians, according to a new CNN/ORC International survey released Wednesday.
According to the survey, 54 percent of respondents now say that marriages between gay and lesbian couples should be leagl, with only 42 percent opposed.
The results also indicated that the number of Americans who say they have a close friend or family member who is gay jumped from 49 percent in 2010 to 60 percent today, the first time in CNN polling that a majority of Americans have said that.
From Media Matters: During the Thursday edition of CNN’s Early Start, co-anchor Ashleigh Banfield reported on comments made by Kansas Pastor Curtis Knapp, who recently called for the government to kill gays and lesbians. In an exclusive CNN interview, Knapp clarified his comments, stating:
“We punish pedophilia, we punish incest, we punish polygamy and various things. It’s only homosexuality that is lifted out as an exemption.”
Banfield wasn’t pleased by Knapp’s attempt to compare homosexuality to pedophilia and incest. In her attempt to discredit Knapp’s explanation, however, she claimed that, unlike pedophilia and incest, “homosexuality is a lifestyle choice by people. It is voluntary.”
BANFIELD: Pedophilia is not by choice, last I checked. In his sermon, Pastor Knapp blamed the Bush administration for its tolerance of gay people. Says that he claims that set the stage, in fact, for the Obama administration to endorse same-sex marriage. Like I said, you can’t make this stuff up. Unbelievable. Speechless, right?
[…]BANFIELD: Again, we gotta outline here, when he says “they punish incest and pedophilia,” please. Those things are often not by choice and are crimes. Homosexuality is a lifestyle choice by people. It is voluntary.
While Banfield was clearly trying condemn Knapp’s anti-gay remarks, she ended up doing a lot more harm than good. A person’s sexual orientation is not a “lifestyle choice” or voluntary – it is an immutable part of their identity.
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), “most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.” Scientific research has demonstrated that a person’s sexual orientation is not a matter of choice but rather “primarily neurological at birth.” According to molecular biologist Dean Hamer, sexual orientation is regarded in the scientific community as a phenotype and is “deeply rooted in biology.”
More importantly, the claim that gay people can simply choose to not be gay is a favorite talking point of some of the country’s most notorious anti-gay organizations. Groups like the National Organization for Marriage, Family Research Council, American Family Association have all used the idea that gay people can voluntarily change their sexual orientation as a justification for denying equality to gays and lesbians. The “lifestyle choice” myth is also at the heart of efforts to “cure” gay people through “ex-gay” therapy, which has been discredited as ineffective and potentially harmful by nearly every major professional medical organization in America.
In other words, in her attempt to mock Knapp’s extreme anti-gay remarks, Banfield ended up reinforcing one of the right’s most damaging myths about LGBT people.