One of the most ignored passages in federal legislation came in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, insisting that public TV and radio should adhere to "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature." Take the debate over transgenderism. That debate has two sides, and it's controversial, and yet on Saturday night, the PBS NewsHour aired almost 14 minutes of transgender advocacy without any rebuttal from an opposing point of view.
The subject was a "ban" on transgenders in the military. PBS was enforcing a different kind of "ban" -- not allowing any "dehumanizing" traditional views about gender to be expressed. First came nine minutes promoting a left-wing documentary called TransMilitary, which began as a one-sided New York Times video. Co-director Gabe Silverman and trans woman Laila Ireland made their case against the Trump administration "ban" on transgenders in the military.
That was followed by a five-minute puffball interview with Chase Strangio, a trans man and attorney with the ACLU LGBT and HIV Project. The true sour cherry on top came when Feliciano asked the ACLU advocate to address how the media coverage is insufficiently progressive. It even "perpetuates misconceptions." To which many Americans would say: The biggest misconception on this issue is people looking at their genitals and denying their gender. But that viewpoint is verboten on taxpayer-funded PBS.
IVETTE FELICIANO: And you've written extensively about how the media's coverage of trans issues sometimes further stigmatizes trans people and even perpetuates misconceptions.Can you say a little bit more about that?
CHASE STRANGIO: As visibility has increased, we've ended up watching this discourse emerge that really just ask questions like are trans people real? So trans people deserve health care? And that's sort of foundational premise of those inquiries is itself really dehumanizing because of course we're real. That shouldn't be a question. It shouldn't be a question whether we deserve health care, of course we deserve health care. And so I think what we really have a responsibility to do is really shift the focus of the inquiry and help people understand that there's people's core humanity and lives are on the line and that this isn't about having a debate over our existence.
That passage perfectly describes how the Left crushes any ethic of "objectivity" and balance" and demands a ban on broadcasting traditional points of view. Allowing a debate would be "dehumanizing" and somehow questioning the "existence" of gender-deniers. Nobody's denying they're "real" people or that they have a "core humanity." But you can't even say that on PBS.
PS: Strangio blamed "Christian homophobia" for the terrorist mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando.
