Republicans are deceitfully playing with words to avoid being slammed as homophobes, racists, and bigots, claimed CNN contributor L.Z. Granderson on Tuesday morning's Newsroom. Anchor Kyra Phillips simply let Granderson air his liberal diatribe without any challenge, and no conservative guest was brought on to respond.
Republicans "aren't fighting for Muslims and mosques," said Granderson of their claims of "religious freedom," but simply "fighting for Christianity." [Video below. Click here for audio.]
Granderson also claimed that candidates hide behind the phrase "family values" to avoid a direct reference to same-sex couples, and thus are able to oppose same-sex marriage without being called homophobes.
The duo hinted that Republicans are afraid of charges of racism. Phillips later asked "how do we talk about national security without sounding racist?" Granderson, at the end, insisted that "we need to start having a real honest conversation about this, and go ahead and talk about race being part of this."
"[T]he more you deny it, the more you look like you're guilty," said Granderson.
A brief transcript of the segment is as follows:
(...)
L.Z. GRANDERSON, CNN contributor, ESPN.com senior writer: Well, we begin with all of them, really. You know, religious freedom, for instance, right? You know they aren't fighting for Muslims and mosques. They're fighting for Christianity and Judeo-Christianity. So let's just be honest with that, right?
When you talk about family values, they're saying that because the assumption is that gay people don't have families, and so it's a way for them to talk about gay issues or gay people without saying "gay," so they don't get pinned for being homophobic.
And "secure the border," that's about Mexicans. Let's just say what it is, they're talking about Mexican people. They're talking about illegal immigrants coming from Mexico. If they really were about securing the border, they would talk about the other borders as well.
