This one from Media Matters is about a week old from good ol' Bill, but then again, I don't get time to blog on Sundays. Leave it to Bill to bring a non-issue to a fever pitch (no pun apologies today).
During the July 12 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly responded to a viewer's email regarding his July 11 report on a gay pride night at the San Diego Padres' Petco Park the same night as a hat giveaway for children, during which O'Reilly called it "insane" to "cluster" gay men and lesbians during a "hat giveaway for any kid under 12." In his email, the viewer stated that O'Reilly's "position seems to imply that putting gays and kids together in one place is a bad thing" and claimed that "kids are around gays every day." O'Reilly responded: "But not thousands of them, sir. That can be confusing to children."Bill, the kids went to a baseball game and most of them - and their parents - were certainly oblivious to any homosexual presence. That's because gay people look just like you and me. I know, it's a controversial view, but there it is.
Is it because you don't want a gay taint on something so traditionally American and Masculine as baseball? Is it because you have some long-defunct festering sore in your brain that still equates homosexuals to pedophiles? Either way, the issue is with you, Bill, not the kids, parents, or homosexuals that just want to enjoy a ball game. The "Worlds Collide!" banner during this story is the testament to your own sensationalism.
As for these kids being confused: if they were aware of the presence of homosexuals at the game and saw them enjoying baseball - just like they were - then they may have made a very real and humanistic observation that gay and straight are not so different after all. The only way this could lead to confusion would be if it were butting up against a previously indoctrinated and bigoted view of America, one which Bill O'Reilly apparently believes should be solidly in place.
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