O'Reilly's Homophobia

"I think everybody's got to relax on all this gay stuff."
-- Bill O'Reilly, The O'Reilly Factor, August 15, 2007

From his suggestion that the "secular progressive movement" would like to have "poly-amorphous" marriage ("you can marry 18 people, you can marry a duck") to his statement that it would be "insane" and "inappropriate" to "cluster" gays near children, Bill O' Reilly has never been one to "relax on all this gay stuff."

When O'Reilly isn't dishing the homophobia himself, he's giving others a platform on his show to bash the LGBT community -- featuring guests like Marc Rudov, who recently advanced the bogus notion that "promoting a homosexual lifestyle" of gays and lesbians would cause "long-term consequences for children," that like a brain tumor, may take years to diagnose:

RUDOV: If there's going to be a brain tumor, it might not be discovered for 10 years -- and I kind of look at this in the same way, because children do form their sexual identities from their same-sex parents. And what's going on here is basically teaching children that there's no difference between a heterosexual marriage and a homosexual marriage.

Fox News and O'Reilly use the topic of same-sex couples and their families to promote his show and incite fear of the LGBT community. Never was this practice more clear than when Fox used footage from Rosie O'Donnell's cruise for gay and lesbian couples and their families to promote an upcoming edition of the Factor. The promo raised the question: "Is the media celebrating gay culture?" You can probably guess what the answer was.

Of course, we all know this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to O'Reilly and his attacks on the LGBT community.

Last October on his nationally syndicated radio program, The Radio Factor, O'Reilly began a multi-day tirade against Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and her popular Potter character, Dumbledore. During a promotion for his television program on his radio show, he said: "We're also gonna tell you about Harry Potter and the gay agenda. Apparently that's goin' on." That night on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, he asked "Why have a gathering of Potter aficionados and then drop the gay bomb on them? Why do that? ... She did it to provoke. I think this is a provocateur." The next night he escalated the rhetoric even further when he said that:

"There are millions of Americans who feel that the media and the educational system is trying to indoctrinate their children to a certain way of life, and that includes parity for homosexuals with heterosexuals. And that's what this Rowling thing is all about, because she sells so many books. So many kids read it, that she comes out and says, 'Oh, Dumbledore is gay, and that's great.' And this -- it's another in the indoctrination thing. That's what the belief system is among some Americans."

After his guest, comedian Dennis Miller, pushed back by stating that children could not be indoctrinated into being gay, O'Reilly replied, "No, but tolerance. It's -- you know, he's not going to be gay, but it's tolerance of it."

Media Matters has documented numerous instances in which O'Reilly has attacked the LGBT community. Here are just three, but you can see the litany of his misinformation and attacks on the LGBT community at the end of this email:

O'Reilly criticized the inclusion of a lesbian couple as 'cutest couple' in a high school yearbook, saying: "I think private behavior belongs in private settings. ... I don't think it belongs in the high school yearbook." However, he said he would be OK with a heterosexual couple being cutest couple "because that is the norm of society."
O'Reilly suggested that allowing green cards for same-sex partners would lead to rampant immigration abuses.
O'Reilly called the San Diego Padres' decision to host a gay pride night and a children's hat giveaway promotion during the same baseball game "dumb," "almost unbelievable," and a "mistake." He said it was "insane" to "cluster" gay men and lesbians during a "hat giveaway for any kid under 12," later adding: "You're putting it in a kid's face at a baseball game." O'Reilly also said: "This is social engineering by the Padres."
It's time to tell O'Reilly and Fox News that enough is enough; if anyone should "relax on all this gay stuff," it's Bill O'Reilly. I hope you'll take a moment to contact Fox News and The O'Reilly Factor today and make sure your voice is heard.

Special Thanks to Media Matters