Adam Rippon, the out gay US Olympic figure skater who refused Vice President Mike Pence’s insistent requests for a meeting. | ADAMRIPPON.FIGURESKATERSONLINE.COM
Speaking of bigotry and bullshit — we’re always speaking of bigotry and bullshit here at Media Circus — we can thank Erik Wemple and the Washington Post for catching Fox News in the act. The headline reads: “Fox News eliminates column by network executive blasting Olympic diversity as ‘Darker, Gayer, Different.’” I don’t know about you, but I get a sick feeling in my stomach when I read a headline like that — sickness combined with smugness, since it confirms everything I know about Fox News and I love to be proven correct.
Wemple writes:
“John Moody didn’t like what he was reading in this Post article: ‘Trying to make Team USA look more like America.’ Written by Rick Maese, the story notes that officials with the US Olympic Committee are ‘pleased’ that this year’s squad in Pyeongchang ‘includes more African Americans and Asian Americans — and even the first two openly gay men — than recent winter squads.’
“In an op-ed for FoxNews.com, Moody, who serves as the executive vice president and executive editor for Fox News, took issue with the focus on diversity in a competitive context: ‘Unless it’s changed overnight, the motto of the Olympics, since 1894, has been “Faster, Higher, Stronger.” It appears the US Olympic Committee would like to change that to “Darker, Gayer, Different.” If your goal is to win medals, that won’t work,’ he wrote. The headline of the piece is ‘In Olympics, let’s focus on the winner of the race — not the race of the winner.’”
Nice, huh?
PERSPECTIVE: Media Circus
Wemple goes on: “Some synapses apparently failed to connect here. [To put it mildly.] Unless something changed overnight, the USOC continues choosing its teams the way it has in the past. Those who skate the fastest, jump the farthest, perform the best — they’re the ones who end up making the trip. The quite admirable goal of Olympic officials is, apparently, to ensure that those who so qualify come to represent the country’s diversity.
“A different interpretation altogether prevails in Moody’s op-ed. ‘For the current USOC, a dream team should look more like the general population,’ writes Moody. ‘So, while uncomfortable, the question probably needs to be asked: were our Olympians selected because they’re the best at what they do, or because they’re the best publicity for our current obsession with having one each from Column A, B, and C?’ Well, Mr. Moody: You’re the executive vice president and executive editor for Fox News. If this ‘uncomfortable’ question needs answering, why don’t you deploy some of the nearly $1.5 billion in Fox News profits and send some reporters to investigate?”
It’s at this point that I started laughing.
Pita Taufatofua, the taekwondo champion and cross-country skier from the Polynesian nation of Tonga who did make time for the veep. | TWITTER.COM
Wemple writes frequently about Fox; he’s done his homework. He quotes Gabriel Sherman’s book “The Loudest Voice in the Room,” a biography of the late and unlamented head of Fox News, Roger Ailes, on Moody: “A ‘conservative journalist’ [Note: I love the fact that Wemple found a way to put that in quotes] who had ‘topped out’ as the New York bureau chief at Time magazine, Moody carried forward Ailes’ instructions to ‘fight’ against the prevalence of liberalism in the ranks of the country’s journalists. Sometimes that fight rankled folks, as Sherman documented: In an instructional seminar for new hires, Moody distributed examples of New York Times stories that, in his view, leaned to the left. ‘Pointing to an article about a book fair in Zimbabwe with a gay and lesbian booth, Moody grumbled, “How is this news? Why does anyone care about this?” Adam Sank, a gay producer, told Sherman: ‘There would be a lot more homophobia that’d come my way later on.’”
As a side note, one reason that an LGBTQ booth at a Zimbabwean book fair might technically be considered newsworthy is that male same-sex sexual relations are illegal in Zimbabwe.
Stefano Gennarini surfaced again this week, this time complete with a JD in his byline (I’m not impressed), with an article on Lifesitenews.com. “Fewer people support the LGBT agenda, survey shows,” the headline bleated. Gennarini is in ecstasy: “The survey also found a decrease in Americans who identify as strong supporters of the LGBT agenda in all situations, as opposed to only qualified supporters of LGBT issues in certain situations. This may be a reaction to the intransigence of LGBT extremists in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case before the Supreme Court.”
By LGBT extremists, Gennarini is referring to anyone who believes that public accommodations laws apply to all the public, not just to straight people.
Gennarini goes on: “In Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) just elected an openly pro-family judge María Elósegui Ichaso to the European Court of Human Rights… There were also pro-LGBT candidates in the running, but the vote was not even close, with 114 votes in her favor and the next runner up only garnering 76. This, even though María Elósegui Ichaso has written and spoken out against gender ideology in conservatives [sic] publications and environments. While the Court has always been more conservative than most human rights bodies, the sheer bluntness of María Elósegui Ichaso’s writings, one would have thought, might have disqualified her. Instead, it seems to have worked in her favor.
“Here is a zinger from María Elósegui Ichaso’s writing: ‘Those who build and express their sexual behavior in conformity with their biological sex develop balanced and healthy conduct. Those who commit themselves to going against their own biology develop several pathologies. This is clear.’”
So she’s a nutcase. This is clear.
Here’s some of the Wikipedia entry on María Elósegui Ichaso, who has no formal training in biology, chemistry, or medicine. Most amusingly, Google Translator periodically renders “she” as “he” and “her” and “his”; so much for the strict gender binaries that Elósegui Ichaso holds dear:
“After the publication of his book ‘Diez temas de género: Men and women before the productive and reproductive rights,’” the entry reads, “Professor Elósegui granted an interview in which she affirmed that, if the identity is built apart from the gender that marks the DNA, pathologies develop, such as sexually transmitted diseases: ‘Those who build and perform their sexual behavior according to their biological sex will develop a balanced and healthy behavior, and those who insist on going against their biology will develop different pathologies. [In the book “Ten Gender Issues”], I do not manifest myself explicitly and as a starting point against gay ideology. What I do explain is the scientific basis of sexuality, from which we derive the healthy and desirable behaviors and what science shows us the homosexual lifestyle carries higher risks of sexually transmitted diseases. But even with this, each individual must be free to develop their sexual identity as they wish, although they cannot avoid its consequences.’”
The entry goes on to report, however, that last month, the same one in which she was elected to the European Court of Human Rights, she said, “I do not think that homosexuality produces pathologies.”
So in addition to being a crank, she’s also a liar and a hypocrite. I’ve got to hand it to Gennarini – he sure knows how to pick ‘em.
