Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Run For Your Lives!!! Lesbian Gangs!!!

There has been the craziest thing on TV lately. Mostly the bloggers are getting kick out of it, because it's so dumb, but some people take this stuff seriously, so you have to do something about it.

Bill O'Reilly had a breathless piece recently about "lesbian gangs!!!" (It is my understanding that the term is required to have three exclamation points.)

From the Southern Poverty Law Center's report on it:
A "national underground network" of pink pistol-packing lesbians is terrorizing America. "All across the country," they are raping young girls, attacking heterosexual males at random, and forcibly indoctrinating children as young as 10 into the homosexual lifestyle, according to a shocking June 21 segment on the popular Fox News Channel program, "The O'Reilly Factor."

Titled "Violent Lesbian Gangs a Growing Problem," the segment began with host Bill O'Reilly briefly referencing for his roughly 3 million viewers the case of Wayne Buckle, a DVD bootlegger who was attacked by seven lesbians in New York City last August. Deploying swift, broad strokes, O'Reilly painted a graphic picture of lesbian gangs running amok. The Oh-Really Factor: Fox News' Bill O'Reilly offers up an 'expert' to claim that pink pistol-packing lesbian gangs are terrorizing the nation

You ought to read the rest of this, it gives a lot of detail. A lot of background.

Most of the blogosphere got a bit of a laugh out of it, except you just know there are people at home who watch this ... stuff ... and huddle together in fear. Fear of the menace of lesbian gangs!!!

But, you ask -- who would ever believe a story like this? Ah, we know who (scroll down to "Related News").

Yesterday, Box Turtle Bulletin carried a statement from GLAAD, who figured they'd better do something about this nuttiness before it got out of hand.
GLAAD Challenges Irresponsible Reporting of “Lesbian Gangs”

This year, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has been busy challenging sensationalistic and unsubstantiated reports of so-called “lesbian gangs.”

On June 21, Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor featured a segment titled “Lesbian Gang Epidemic,” in which Fox News Crime Analyst Rod Wheeler made the factually inaccurate claims that a “national network” of “lesbian gangs” preys on young girls and that 150 such gangs exist in the Washington, D.C. area. Both the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and the Southern Poverty Law Center found Wheeler’s assertions and statistics to be deeply flawed and misleading. In response, GLAAD issued a Call to Action, urging constituents to demand The O’Reilly Factor to provide background information and evidence that supported Wheeler’s statements. Following GLAAD’s efforts, Wheeler posted a retraction of the story on his website.

Well, that's good. I didn't think those kinds of guys posted retractions. I mean, The O'Reilly Factor is worried about what? -- their credibility?

Look, maybe I just fell off the turnip truck. I don't get this. Lesbian gangs??? Who makes this stuff up?

But this story gets better, I mean really. O'Reilly actually invited a guy from GLAAD onto the show (yo, Rashad), and O'Reilly sort of apologized.
As a result of the overwhelming feedback from GLAAD and its constituents, The O’Reilly Factor invited GLAAD’s Senior Director of Media Programs, Rashad Robinson, to appear on its July 9th show. On the program, Robinson brought to light the sensational and inaccurate assertions in Wheeler’s report. Bill O’Reilly agreed that the report was exaggerated and promised, “We’ll do better next time.”

This was not the first time GLAAD took the media to task for irresponsibly and sensationally reporting on “lesbian gangs.” In February, GLAAD called on local ABC24 and CW30 affiliates in Memphis, TN not to air a shockingly defamatory and inaccurate report dramatizing “Gays Taking Over,” with actors portraying a group of African American women preying on other women. In the report, which GLAAD screened before its airdate, the principal interview subject, a so-called “gang expert,” stated without evidence that people victimized by “lesbian gangs” would be turned gay.

Although GLAAD’s urging prompted the station to modify its report and to disclose that it was unable to document its claims or provide evidence to back them, the segment that aired retained its sensationalistic and homophobic tone. And, unlike Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor, ABC24 general manager Jack Peck refused to acknowledge the report’s irresponsible exaggerations. And recently, he even began falsely claiming that GLAAD had threatened to sue the station.

Whenever media outlets seek to boost ratings by airing sensationalized and unsubstantiated stories such as these, GLAAD will continue to demand that journalists back up their reporting with facts and statistics and that their representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community are fair, accurate and inclusive.

GLAAD Statement on “Lesbian Gangs!!!”

It is a weird, wild, and wacky world we live in. But slowly, slowly, things are changing. Not so many years ago nobody would've challenged a story like this, now even Bill O'Reilly admits he got it wrong.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bill Orally strikes again!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coDF6JqiPek
At about 1 minute 40 seconds:

Bill-O finally reached the essence of what he really wanted to say. “Look,” he said, “we don‘t have any use for NBC News. You know that. We think that this is an out of control outfit over there and Americans are bailing out of it in droves. So I‘m not going to argue for them.”

Could have just said that at the start and saved everyone some time, fat head. But funny you should be fixated on sexual predators. Some of O‘Reilly‘s stuff is outright dishonesty. Some of it is him prostituting himself for the sake of the vendettas and machinations of the people who own him. Every once in a while he becomes transcendent, perfectly merging the creepy with the unintentionally self-revelatory and the utterly hilarious.

For this next edited version of his unbelievably sexual interview with the embattled and photographed Miss New Jersey Amy Polumbo we are indebted to Joel McCale (ph) and our friends over at the Soup on the E Network. They did this first. And that, by the way, is the right letter for it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O‘REILLY, FOX NEWS HOST: What are they?

AMY POLUMBO, MISS NEW JERSEY: They‘re normal college pictures, my friend and I having fun.

O‘REILLY: Do you have clothes on?

POLUMBO: Yes. No nudity?

O‘REILLY: There‘s no nudity in the pictures. Are you drunk or anything?

POLUMBO: No.

O‘REILLY: It‘s just you and your friends cavorting?

POLUMBO: Yes.

O‘REILLY: Is it two women together, could it be in a provocative way?

POLUMBO: Not at all.

O‘REILLY: Any sexual nature in the pictures?

POLUMBO: No.

O‘REILLY: OK, it‘s not a negligee situation or anything like that?

POLUMBO: No.

O‘REILLY: There‘s nothing provocative in the pictures?

POLUMBO: Not really.

O‘REILLY: Is this a fantasy picture thing? Were you dressed up in a certain way?

She could be dressed in some kind of dominatrix thing or something like that.

POLUMBO: My mom has seen the pictures. She really was not that upset.

O‘REILLY: But if they were innocent pictures, then I‘m wondering what she was upset about. Can you just give me a hint?

(END VIDEO CLIP)


What a sicko!!!

July 25, 2007 9:12 AM  
Blogger Robert said...

Just amazing. What do you say about things like this?

BTW, Concerned Women for America posted an interview (by Matt Barber, who may be concerned, but I believe is not a woman) with the Alliance Defense Lawyer guy, about PFOX's latest assault on MCPS (about the trashcans):

http://www.cwfa.org/play.asp?id=cw20070719a

They just love the innocuous email they received, and somehow conflate people not liking antigay materials with bullying of "Christian" students. They just pull out all the stops. I think it is essentially a fundraising effort ("evil prohomosexual forces bully innocent Christian students", or something like that).

Regina, I don't know if you monitor this blog, but Theresa, can you pass the message on to them:

Reparative therapy and Conversion ministries are potentially very harmful to children (and adults), as I and others can attest, and should not be "sold" to them. You may have the legal right to distributive such "ex-gay" materials in some public schools, but you have a moral responsibility to cease promoting dangerous methods and activities. I ask you to stop.

rrjr

July 25, 2007 5:22 PM  
Anonymous Emproph said...

Citizenlink ran with the story as recently as the 19th, blaming gays for attempting to suppress the story. Burroway comments on that at BoxTurtleBulletin as well.

No surprize there, but I was really blown away yesterday when LifeSite News followed up with the Wheeler/O'Reilly apology after having run with the original story.

www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jul/07072401.html

So I'm sure it won't be long before FOTF's Citizenlink blames that on 'homosexual activist' infiltration...

July 25, 2007 11:12 PM  
Blogger Orin Ryssman said...

I do not watch Bill O‘Reilly at all...just not my "cup of coffee" watching a blow hard bloviate (and I like to form my own opinions about the news). However I was curious and as I rather like YouTube, I decided to check out the video clip of one blow hard commenting on another blow hard. It needs to be noted that the video clip is highly edited, and hence may not be at all representative of the interview O‘Reilly conducted with Miss New Jersey.

Still, from what I know of Bill O‘Reilly, I suspect too much of his mind is obsessively preoccupied with the lurid.

July 26, 2007 5:58 AM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

Olbermann stated the video was an "edited version" of the interview of Miss New Jersey by Bill O'Reilly. The questions and comments may have been placed closer together in this video, but Mr. O'Reilly asked each one of those questions and made each one of those comments himself. Check out the FOXNews website, you'll think this interview never took place.

Call the newspaper -- I agree with Orin that "obsessively preoccupied with the lurid" is an apt description of Mr. O'Reilly.

July 26, 2007 10:07 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home