Last night, Jon Stewart went after Bryan Fischer for his disgusting anti-gay hatemongering over the last few days as it relates to Richard Grenell, an openly gay adviser to Mitt Romney who was forced to resign from right-wing anti-gay pressure.
Yes, he's a veteran of both the Bush administration, and the guy who wanted to pretty much dismantle the United Nations. Now I know what you're probably thinking. This is a pivot to the center... how?
KYRA PHILLIPS (5/2/2012): Richard Grenell is openly gay.
Ohhhh! That's quite a pivot. Hiring a guy who believes in everything you believe, and likes everything you like, except boobs.
All right, so the guy's gay. Who cares?
4/24/2012:
BRYAN FISCHER: Governor Romney picks as the face of his campaign on national security and foreign policy, a man who is not just a homosexual, but is a homosexual activist. ... Our concern is for religious liberty and we recognize the threat that homosexual activism and the homosexual agenda opposes... ah, imposes on religious liberty.
KYRA PHILLIPS: But Bryan....
BRYAN FISCHER: That is our concern.
Yeah, you can't appoint a gay guy. He threatens our very right to hate people for being gay. It's not right! That's Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, and in case you're wondering why he looks so blurry, it's because his opinions are being broadcast from 50 years ago.
Video and full transcript below the fold.
So we're talking about Mitt Romney there, who will be the Republican president nominee, or as I now call it, the Rominee™, that's trademarked. By the way, I'll have the whole line of Rominee™ products. For instance, my latest is Flop-Flips.
It's for people who've changed their mind about flip-flops. It's at the official Rominee™ stores.
And now, that Romney has weathered the primaries, it's time for the great... (reverb noise) PIVOT... TO... THE... CENTER!!
I'm not sure if that was loud enough. Case in point.
RACHEL MADDOW (4/20/2012): Wanna see what the Romney campaign did today? They hired a new spokesman. They hired a man named Richard Grenell. Mr. Grenell is a veteran of the second Bush administration, he worked for President George W. Bush's controversial UN ambassador John Bolton.
Yes, he's a veteran of both the Bush administration, and the guy who wanted to pretty much dismantle the United Nations. Now I know what you're probably thinking. This is a pivot to the center... how?
KYRA PHILLIPS (5/2/2012): Richard Grenell is openly gay.
Ohhhh! That's quite a pivot. Hiring a guy who believes in everything you believe, and likes everything you like, except boobs.
All right, so the guy's gay. Who cares?
4/24/2012:
BRYAN FISCHER: Governor Romney picks as the face of his campaign on national security and foreign policy, a man who is not just a homosexual, but is a homosexual activist. ... Our concern is for religious liberty and we recognize the threat that homosexual activism and the homosexual agenda opposes... ah, imposes on religious liberty.
KYRA PHILLIPS: But Bryan....
BRYAN FISCHER: That is our concern.
Yeah, you can't appoint a gay guy. He threatens our very right to hate people for being gay. It's not right! That's Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, and in case you're wondering why he looks so blurry, it's because his opinions are being broadcast from 50 years ago.
So what else don't you like about Grenell?
BRYAN FISCHER (4/23/2012): Homosexuals are about short-lived relationships, and frequent anonymous sexual encounters. This is very common in the homosexual community.
I've... I've heard.
BRYAN FISCHER (4/23/2012): Homosexuals themselves admit in surveys that they have had 500 to as many as 1,000 sexual partners over the course of a lifetime.
And that's an average! I mean, his number could be as low as 200, or as high as a million!
BRYAN FISCHER (4/23/2012): There's constant stories about raiding gay bathhouses, and gays having sex in public parks and in public restrooms.
Oh, so it sounds like your problem with Grenell isn't that he's gay, it's that he'll be too busy.
So, the Christian Right is very angry about this guy. But you know what? Tough! Republican primary's over, my friends. Romney is the guy you're stuck with, and now he gets to stand on principle. The people on his campaign don't have to dance to your bigoted tune anymore!
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN (5/2/2012): An openly gay spokesperson fro the Romney campaign says he's stepping down this morning.
I'm sure he's just leaving to spend more time with the family that... those people aren't sure he should be allowed to have. (Jon facepalms) Um, while the Romney campaign hasn't addressed the resignation, but there's one person out there who's all too happy to talk about it.
BRYAN FISCHER (5/2/2012): This is absolutely huge, that a homosexual activist in a very prominent place in Mitt Romney's campaign has stepped down. ... And it's very clear from the Washington Post that he resigned because of pressure that was put on the Romney campaign by the pro-family community.
What a proud day it must be for you. I mean, in years to come, you can all sit around and tell the grandkids about the day you got that gay guy fired.
We'll be right back.
Also, after quickly covering
Newt Gingrich dropping out of the race, Jon then looked at how both right-wing evangelicals and Democrats are
attacking Mitt Romney over his Mormonism. Special ire was paid to Lawrence O'Donnell.
While some of you may not like that segment, note what Jon ends with:
You can't cherry-pick the worst aspects of a religion, and then hold every member of that religion solely responsible for it. It's not even relevant. It's not like Mitt Romney will pursue policies that are unfair to black people because he's a Mormon. He'll do that because he's a Republican.
Meanwhile, after noting that Richard Branson now has
ice cubes with his face on them for first class passengers, Stephen
covered the
story of Accretive Health sending debt collectors to pose as hospital employees in emergency rooms to force patients to pay up front before allowing them to get emergency medical care.
He then had on the
German ambassador to the U.N. to explain how Kermit the Frog broke media law in Germany.
Jon interviewed Sen.
Tom Coburn (R-OK), which of course went long. Jon was able to elicit out of Coburn an admittance that taxes DO need to go up on some people, and he also got Coburn to call the right-wing "paranoid". Here's the unedited interview in two parts.
Part 1
Part 2
Stephen interviewed social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who stared too long into the abyss to write a new book about religion and the right.