CNN news anchor Jake Tapper appeared on Friday’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” saying about Donald Trump that that the problem of politicians lying “wasn’t invented on January 20” following Trump’s inauguration but that in all his years of reporting on politics, he’d “never really seen this level of falsehood, just quantitatively.” It’s not just ‘If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor,’ it’s conspiracy theories based on nothing that have members of his own party distancing themselves from him.” Maher asked how Tapper’s work had changed since the inauguration, and pointed to his trend in “speaking truth to crazy.”
Tapper also criticized Trump for waging war on the media. “We’re all ‘fake news,’” he said. “All of us except for ‘Fox & Friends.”
On Monday’s edition of Erin Burnett OutFront on CNN hosted by Jake Tapper a potyion of the show focused on District Court Judge Clark Waddoups stricking down of a portion of Utah’s anti-polygamy statute which aimed at prohibiting polygamous cohabitation. And of course they invite on Tony Perkins, president of the SPLC hate group certified Family Research Council (FRC), totalk about it and baselessly accuse marriage equality of creating a slippery slope to polygamy after asking him whether the growing acceptance of homosexuality was to blame for the decriminalization of polygamous relationships in Utah.
Perkins, who routinely links homosexuality to pedophilia and refers to homosexuality as a “lifestyle” of “perversion,” was all-too-happy to use this opportunity to revive his organization’s longstanding opposition to Lawrence v. Texas and support for laws criminalizing gay sex.
[Anti-polygamy activist Laurie] Allen, who herself was raised in a polygamous environment and staunchly opposes polygamy, criticized Perkins for attempting to compare polygamous relationships and same-sex relationships, calling his arguments “salacious propaganda.”
Rather than pointing out the absurdity of Perkins’ arguments, however, Tapper went on to quote an FRC statement suggesting that the legalization of same-sex marriage might create a “slippery slope” to the legalization of polygamous marriage in the future, despite the fact that the judge’s ruling did not actually legalize polygamous marriage.
Both Jake Tapper and CNN owe the LGBT community an apology for not only baiting Perkins and setting him up to spread lies about same-sex marriage linking to polygamy and how the Supreme Court really made a mistake when it stopped letting states throw people in jail just for being gay.
Oh, and there’s also the fact that they let a white supremacist linked hate group leader be on the show in the first place. Perhaps next time Tapper could do some real reporting and grill Tony Perkins on that and his outrageous lies against the LGBT community instead of using him as an “expert” on anything and lending him credibility.
If GLAAD is going to be too chicken to call CNN and Tapper out then we as a community must be the ones to do so.
Jake Tapper can be reached via his Twitter account at @jaketapper and CNN using THIS LINK.
Con-man and gay face Joel Osteen (a Oprah discovery)of the Houston TX megachurch Lakewood, appeared on The Lead with Jake Tapper to pitch his mew book I Declare and talked about his right-wing christian-fest biblical show “The Bible” and let it be known that he doesn’t believe in or support same-sex marriage because has he doesn’t see “same-sex in the scripture.”
“It’s a fine line,” Osteen answered. “We’re for everybody, but, of course, as a Christian pastor my base is off what I believe the Scripture says. Marriage is between a male and a female. But again, we’re for everybody. But that’s where I draw the line.”
Tapper followed up by asking Osteen whether he believes that gay couples should have access to some basic rights.
“I think so. You know, I think we have to be compassionate about it all. We’re not against everybody. And there are certainly people who love each other and I believe they should have those rights. I just … you know, when I come back to the Scripture, as much as I’m for everybody, I don’t see same-sex in the Scripture.”
Well Osteen is right about one thing. Same-sex marriage isn’t in the scriptures but also no where in the Bible does it specifically say that same-sex marriage is not allowed or the fact that it is only between one man and one woman although it does mention marriage between one man and many women. After all, the nation of Israel comes from the offspring of the four “wives” (2 wives, 2 concubines) of Jacob. Polygamy and sexual slavery anyone? Its in the scripture so it must be okay!
The whole interview was a thinly veiled attempt by Osteen to hide his bigotry. And not a very good one at that and as much as I like Jake Tapper he should have called Osteen out on his woeful rhetoric.
And as for Miss Oprah. I’ve been waiting for years for an apology from her for her “discovery”of this anti-gay bigot and using him on her daytime talk show and legitimizing him as a “Man of God”
