It was only a matter of time before liberal gay rights activists would politicize the tragic suicide of a homosexual college student as an indictment of social conservatives opposed to their agenda.
MSNBC's Contessa Brewer on October 1 used carefully selected viewer emails to blame "religious kooks" for the death of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate set-up a hidden camera in their dorm room and streamed live footage of the college freshman kissing a man.
At the top of the noon hour, Brewer posed the following question to viewers: "Are we likely to see more instances of gay-bashing because the issue of gay rights is now front and center?" The anchor-activist's loaded question produced predictable responses.
Out of the three emails Brewer read on-air, two of them connected the reprehensible bullying of homosexuals with the pro-family messages of religious figures and one described the bully's actions as hate crimes. Brewer failed to present a single viewer email refuting the link between homosexual bullying and religious preaching.
"The more religious 'leaders' preach that gay is wrong, and dirty, the more bullying there will be," wrote one viewer. "They're almost making it okay to hate, hurt, and truly dehumanize people for who they love."
Another viewer echoed that sentiment: "I can't understand the bullying. A person's sexual orientation is no one's business but his own. Why is it so hard to just live and let live? Even religious kooks should understand that!"
Brewer highlighted "questions about [gay-bashing] in the death of Tyler Clementi," but failed to provide evidence of such concerns other than fact that the victim was taped kissing a man. In fact, not only is the religious affiliation of Clementi's roommate unknown, but reporters have yet to unearth any anti-homosexual messages on the roommate's Twitter account, which he used to inform his followers of his roommate's homosexual activity.
This is not the first time Brewer has abandoned all sense of journalistic objectivity when reporting on gay rights issues; NewsBusters has chronicled numerous instances of her consistent and unabashed support for liberal social causes.
A transcript of the relevant portion of the segment can be found below:
MSNBC
News Live
October 1, 2010
12:52 p.m. EDT
CONTESSA BREWER: Why is it okay? Why is it child's play now to take people's personal details and expose them as entertainment? Of course, then, there are the issues about gay-bashing, questions about that in the death of Tyler Clementi. I've asked whether we're going to see more instances of gay-bashing because the issue of gay rights is now front and center.
Jessica Sodel writes to me, "The more religious 'leaders' preach that gay is wrong, and dirty, the more bullying there will be. They're almost making it okay to hate, hurt, and truly dehumanize people for who they love."
Bill Breen says, "I can't understand the bullying. A person's sexual orientation is no one's business but his own. Why is it so hard to just live and let live? Even religious kooks should understand that!"
And Marcia Draikiwicz got me on Facebook, she says, "This is beyond bullying. These cases represent hate crimes and should all be prosecuted as such."
I'd like to hear your thoughts. We're having a very interesting online conversation about this. And you can reach me on Facebook and on Twitter and of course my email is Contessa@MSNBC.com.
