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Bill O’Reilly, Orrin Hatch Make Dumb Statements About LGBT Americans

06/03/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Apparently comparing transpeople to Ewoks is not enough for Bill O’Reilly. Last night, he went on to compare lesbians and gays to Al-Qaida. It seems like a strange comparison. After all, the Human Rights Campaign is not noted for using the same tactics as Al-Qaida. Well, actually, what O’Reilly is attacking is a new ad campaign run by McDonald’s in France called “Come As You Are.” In particular, he is going after an ad which features a young man talking to his boyfriend.

O’REILLY: Alright, so look, they want to make a political statement selling burgers. They’re entitled to it. It will never run in the USA. They’ll never do that.

SKINNER: Part of an overreaching campaign called come as you are, which you saw at the end there. So they show people in different walks of life. This happens to be their gay friendly ad.

O’REILLY: OK. Do they have an al Qaeda ad, you know, come as you are? You know?

SKINNER: And how do you know it’s not coming to the States?

O’REILLY: I don’t know.

SKINNER: Never say never.

O’REILLY: No. That would not — I guarantee you that will not run here.

Huffington Post has posted a response from McDonald’s in France:

“We wanted to take a look at how French society is today. We’re very comfortable with the topic of homosexuality, there is obviously no problem with homosexuality in France today”. While the statement sounds a bit naive in a country where same sex couples cannot legally marry nor adopt, the idea was to give a positive image of the brand: “The point was not to show someone who is troubled, especially a teenager. We know it can be difficult for some people, but we wouldn’t have dared show someone who is struggling”.

Of course, given that there are parts of this country where a gay friendly ad being run on TV for any product would be a huge boost, say in Vermont or New York, it might not be a bad ad to run in certain parts of the country. Certainly the North East markets would be more amenable to the ad than, say, they are to ads from the National Organization for Marriage.

Of course, this comes on top of Orrin Hatch stating “Gays and lesbians don’t pay tithing, their religion is politics.” Well, maybe for Dr. Maddow who is a political wonk, but very few lesbians, gays and transpeople follow politics on a regular basis. Of course, Senator Hatch was discussing the lack of support the Republicans have been getting with regards to cohesion of late given the massive split between the Tea Party movement and the Mainstream GOP.