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Letterman Jokes And Religious Right Goes Ballistic Over Simpson Appointment

01/07/09- by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
There has been a great deal of upset among many in the LGBT Community over the recent short joke in David Letterman‘s monologue about Amanda Simpson, the recent Obama Administration appointee to the Commerce Department. In the clip, Letterman makes it clear that Simpson is a transwoman, and it is shortly followed by a guy freaking out over the idea. While it may seem rather tasteless, one of the problems in determining humor is always which side the joke is suppose to fall. Is the idea of a person freaking out over a transwoman funny or offensive? The likely reaction among even many transpeople is not necessarily going to be uniform. There are many transpeople who, for instance, are offended by The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and there are plenty of others who love the movie.

It is certainly possible that Letterman was trying, unsuccessfully, to make fun of the Religious Right’s reaction to Ms Simpson. Letterman certainly makes it clear throughout the clip that Simpson is a woman.

The Religious Right made their vitriol apparent shortly after Simpson was appointed to Commerce. “Is there going to be a transgender quota now in the Obama administration? How far does this politics of gay and transgender activism go? Clearly this is an administration that is pandering to the gay lobby.”" was the comment out of Peter LaBarbara of the anti-LGBT group Americans For Truth. Focus on the Family had this to say “Simpson’s nomination was forwarded through to President Obama by a gay activist group, making it appear that this appointment of a male-to-female ‘transgender’ activist to a high level Commerce Department position to be payback to his far-left base for their political support.” Matt Barber, who is affiliated with Liberty University, had this to say “This isn’t like appointing an African-American in order to try to provide diversity and right some kind of discriminatory wrong. This is about political correctness.” David Brody of Christian Broadcasting Network offered this analysis, “The transgender thing doesn’t play well with millions of conservative Evangelicals. … I understand President Obama won’t be after die hard conservative Evangelicals in 2012 but let’s remember that moves like this don’t play well with the million of conservative Independent voters and Catholics who will be up for grabs again in 2012 as well.” Of course, most of those people were ones that did not vote for him anyway.

Simpson took those comments in stride. “[There will be] questions like: Is this a token? Are you here to do a job or just to fill a quota or appease other people? In that regard it makes it a bit more difficult. I’m sure I will have to do and intend to do a far superior job than any other person. But I’m sure I will always be second-guessed.”

There has been no official reaction from Ms Simpson since Letterman’s skit last night.

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