O'Reilly: "[T]housands" of gays in one place "can be confusing to children"
During the July 12 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly responded to a viewer's email regarding his July 11 report on a gay pride night at the San Diego Padres' Petco Park the same night as a hat giveaway for children, during which O'Reilly called it "insane" to "cluster" gay men and lesbians during a "hat giveaway for any kid under 12." In his email, the viewer stated that O'Reilly's "position seems to imply that putting gays and kids together in one place is a bad thing" and claimed that "kids are around gays every day." O'Reilly responded: "But not thousands of them, sir. That can be confusing to children."
O'Reilly did not inform his viewers exactly what number of gay people he believed children could safely be around without becoming "confus[ed]."
From the July 12 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
O'REILLY: Gregory Myers, Fort Collins, Colorado: "Mr. O'Reilly, your position seems to imply that putting gays and kids together in one place is a bad thing. Newsflash, Bill, kids are around gays every day."
But not thousands of them, sir. That can be confusing to children.
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One big chucklehead with a microphone can be very damaging to children.
Parents beware!
Microphones are harmless, except on FOX "News."
I must pose the question: Why do right wingnuts thiink about homosexuality all the time - all the time - all the time? Don't they have anything else to worry about in this world? Disease? War? The state of education? Pollution? No, they're spending all the time - all the time - all the time thinking about homosexuality.
Becuase they are all gay.
You make a great point. They harp endlessly on homosexuality in order to keep their simple-minded listeners from thinking about those other things you mentioned. If you generate enough fear of queers and constantly imply all the homos are out to molest your children, you keep the simple-minded regressive masses from thinking about disease, war, corruption, and the other problems we need to deal with but won't. Gay folks in this country are being used by the right-wingers in exactly the same way their kindred souls in Nazi Germany used the Jews. "Look...over there!!! Be afraid of them!!!"
And to the lapdog MSM, I want to say thanks for the great way you act as watchdogs over the government. Oh, that's right...you abdicated your responsibilities in that area years ago.
Even more to your point, Four30, its the way GAY people were used by the Nazis.
Gay people are always demonized by fascists, accused of willfully & insidiously undermining the moral discipline of the nation, of fostering social decay, & of subverting its institutions. They are presented as another of the multiple 'internal aliens' that are so vital to promoting their 'us versus them' meme. By attacking all who are identifiably 'different', they are able to define who 'we' are, &, therefore, to intimidate people into presenting themselves in a more malleable & conformist manner.
It ain't easy being ANY sort of minority... sexual, ethnic, political, or intellectual... when fascists are running the show.
That's what people like O'Lielly, Hannity, & the Savage Weiner are all about.
That's their message.
Is the number of gays permissable in a group with children present proportional to the acceptable number of loofa squeezing sexual harrassers -- we certainly wouldn't want to confuse the kids into thinking that all those straights are "decent" people.
Yeah, because we wouldn't want them to grow up being tolerant.
One O'Reilly confuses me.
I can see where thousands of children all wearing the same hat would be confusing.
Oh, wait-that's not what this homophobe is saying, is it...
Tommy, we need to get those gayness dilution guidelines set up. How many GPM (Gays Per Million) is going to be the ratio that will keep BilldO in his No-Spin closet?
You're right, this is obviously becoming a national epidemic that needs immediate attention.
We would have to ask Bill of course, but let's start with 1 gay person every 50 square miles, of 1 gay couple every 75 miles (we don't want to encourage gay people to become a couple, far too confusing to children and hurtful to straight people). And if god forbid, they happen to stumble near one another in some fluke, then we round them and haul them off to PETCO Park in San Diego for a good talking too!!!
Yes, take them too Petco Park for a good talking too. Maybe they need too talking toos. Or even three. Maybe you could go there two.
I take it enlightenment and identifying sarcasm so easily displayed are not your strong suits?
Whatev...........
What O'Reilly said is definitely true, but the same could be said about a white child surrounded by thousands of black folks for the first time and vice-versa. Is O'Reilly against childhood confusion in general? Is childhood confusion such a terrible thing?
It really comes down to as a parent, how do you deal with it? I explained it to my own kids the first time I took them to the Atlanta Gay Pride parade and they didn't have any confusion after that.
As usual, I think O'Reilly is really talking about the discomfort of some parents to deal with a subject rather than a child's supposed confusion.
Yeah, OPenmind, just check out Tweakertroll's begging for parenting help on the other thread.It seems to have no idea how to respond to its childs curiosity.
I shouldn't have said they didn't have any confusion. I should have said "if they had confusion, they didn't look like it or ask many questions indicating any profound confusion."
Bill-O I hope you are reading this,
I went to a baseball game when I was a kid. The Yankees played. It was when Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Bera were on the same team. It took four hours to travel to the game which means four hours to travel back. It was a scorching hot day both in the car as the car had no air conditioning and at the game. The Sun was beating down on my head during the whole game. It wouldn't matter to me if there were 2 thousand gays there, because I was forced to go the game as it is I don't like baseball. If given a choice I would rather have gone swimming. Trust me Bill not all kids aren't going to care that much about others at the game.
And although it was kept under wraps back then, I've heard that Yogi Berra had quite a few balls bounced off his chin.
"The Sun was beating down on my head during the whole game"
Too bad it wasn't hat day!
Too bad for your hat giveaway kids day Gay Recruiting Agenda !
Isn’t this something! Bill O’Reilly, an adulterer and sexual harasser, talking about morality?
Why don’t you talk about sexual harassment at Fox News Channel, Bill? Why don’t you talk about how females are treated here?
It’s so bad at this station, we should we rename it “Sex News Channel.
If I'd only known...
I've gone to far more baseball games with my wife than with just the guys.
However, I've always sat next to at least one guy - sometimes between two guys.
I want to take this opportunity to apologize to BO and to all the children who were confused by my pairing with one or two guys - I'm sure their attention was riveted on who paired with whom in the stands and not on that silly stuff happening out on the field.
I'm going to a Red Sox game tomorrow night with my Father-in-Law & my two brother-in-laws.
Hope nobody mistakes us for 2 *Gay* couples ;-)
Bill, it's time to drop this subject before you make an even bigger fool of yourself.
That would not fit BillOs Modus Operandi. Bill likes to follow things deep down into embarrassing depths of ignorance where most fear to tread.
At what point does a homosexual gathering go from easily understood to "confusing"?
When they start batting balls around.
When they travel from the creams and moistruizing counter to auto parts.
;)
When Raoul shows up wearing a seersucker suit - IN OCTOBER?!?
Ok now you guys have done it. My boss is coming over to see why I fell of my chair laughing.
Just the caption words under alone are incredibly homophobic - "Worlds Collide!". What a stunning insult to insinuate that gay people cannot act accordingly around children, or anyone for that matter - that their "world" is such an anathema and dangerous to put children in that such an environment would mean a horrible collision.
He not only insults every gay person with this caption, but every child and every adult who value decency and the value of children.
O'Reilly ought to be ashamed and apologize for this entire embarassment.
But Tommy, as you said of Tucker Carlson's remarks: he's just expressing his opinion and we should be tolerant of it. There's no misinformation, so what's the problem?
<END SNARKY REMARK>
Of course you're absolutely right, Tommy. O'Reilly does have a point, though: if I was a kid and found myself in a sports venue with thousands of gay people, I'd be really confused about why so many people are so threatened by homosexuals.
Vy,
A little correction, I don't believe I ever said you needed to tolerate Tucker's opinion, just recognize that's what it is. You can accept or tolerate it as you wish.
As for O'Reilly vs Tucker, at least Tucker was honest in his opinion regarding Obama - whereas O'Reilly cloaks his in dishonesty. As I said, he has every right to dislike gay people, but he should just come out and have the balls to say it.
Fair enough, Tommy. And you make an excellent point: perhaps the most distasteful aspect of O'Reilly's defense is his attempt to dress up simple prejudice as a rational position.
This reminds me a little bit of all the conservative handwringing over Bill Clinton's "indiscretions" with Monica Lewinsky. Remember how they cried that they didn't know how to explain it to "the children". Well, first of all, how many children even know who the President is...Second, how many children give a ratsass who he has an affair with? Here's a hint...THEY DON'T CARE!
Well Nerzog it depends on how old your kids were when that happen. It likely went over younger kids heads, BUT as the father of 3 boys who were at the time 16, 14, & 12 it was just a tad dicey.
They all knew who the President was & were old enough to find Clinton's *indiscretions* incredibly funny.
The good news is I doubt they were scarred by the incident. None became sex fiends...as far as we know ;-)
Well, there you go. I know that, as a teenager, if I had heard a similar story about Nixon, I would have found it funny, as well. I seriously doubt that it would have been a matter of serious concern for me at that time...or a source of moral confusion...I was pretty immoral already at that age.
The very last Rush Limbaugh show I listened he was talking about the damaging effect of Clinton’s widely publicized indiscretion. According to Rush Limbaugh it prompted a rash of oral sex parties in junior high school. He had some expert in immorality to fill his ditto heads in on this awful trend. They both agreed that this could somehow be attributed to Monicagate. I paraphrase here but they said the kids were rationalizing their behavior by saying if it's okay for the president to do it then it's okay for them. Somehow I don't think these very young teens were thinking about the over weight middle aged president when they were behaving this way.
No no, it takes a long time for that kind of trend to propagate to junior high schoolers. Most likely Newt claiming that oral sex is not adultery was the actual start of said trend. But, wtf, oral sex parties in junior high school?? For real?
If these people were so disturbed about the Prez. little sexcapade, why did they have to talk about it incessantly? And why did they have to trumpet every salacious detail in the Starr report? C'mon. These people were not concerned about "the children" at all.
When my kids needed me to explain to them about heterosexual behavior, I explained it in an age-appropriate way. I did the same thing with my explanation about homosexual behavior. I did the same thing when my kids saw two dogs going at it - talked about it in terms they could understand.
It's not that difficult to do, and it does not confuse kids to have things explained to them! Explaining things makes those things understandable, not confusing!
NOMO, you're just unAmerican! You're emboldening the enemy. You want al Qaida to win! You want to surrender in Iraq and hand it over to the terrorists. Just kidding, of course (that disclaimer was for our simple-minded right-wing friends who seem to love this website). I agree with you 110%.
It seems stupid to make an assumption on either side of the coin on this particular issue of confusion. Oreilly has no way of proving which kids were actually confused. MMFA has no way of proving which kids were not confused.
I'm going to go ahead and assume that no children were confused. Children of conservative/christian families are taught that gay behavior is wrong, so they clearly are not confused. Children of liberal families are taught that people can choose to love whoever they want and it doesn't matter, so those kids aren't confused either. Why did we need this article? It doesn't even spark debate.
Well, you're wrong on one count...the children of conservative Christians were confused...they couldn't figure out why all those gay people weren't being stoned to death.
John, I have to admit you make a very good point here. I'm actually surprised at your tone of reasonableness. And I tend to agree with you in principle. But it's not MMFA's mission to "spark debate." Its purpose is to point out conservative misinformation in the media. Since O'Reilly is one of the biggest misinformers in the media, he gets more than his fair share of attention here.
I'm confused, you say Media Matters exposes the misinformation of conservative views in the media. And here I thought they exposed the misinformation in all the media. Which is it?
Thomas
Assuming any children were confused, what difference does it make? Were you ever confused by anything as a child? Assuming you were normal and have been confused at some point in your childhood, did you ever recover?
I used to be a beautician when I was much younger and yes there was a gay hairdresser. My kids didn't ask a single question about John. Years later my daughter recalled John making a comment about "women were like cockroaches and he wished he could just crush them". She said at the time she had no idea what he meant and didn't think about it till years later. She laughed cause she finally figured out he was gay.
In my household we didn't talk about race or sexual orientation we talked about individual people.
Well said, individuals should be judged on their character, not their race, or their sexual orientation, or their gender, or their wealth, or their intelligence, or their ability to leap tall buildings, or whatever.
I would imagine your kids turned out just fine.
Oh come on you sanctimonious cosmopolitans, your tolerance for diversity stops where ones homophobia begins.
It must be hard for you to understand that there are people out there who really aren't homophobic.
I think we're missing the advantages of confused children. Its soon enough when they know it all, and start running for congress. Extending the confused years could be a great advantage in postponing our own resurgent confusion by a few months.
In BillO's world he conflates
His confusion with kids he does rate
As being like him
Scared of Johnny with Jim
And suggests the kids will take the bait*
*the gay bait, ya know from the homosexual agenda (sic)
I am not against Gays. I am not a homophobic. But I will tell you that if the Sandiego Padres did not publicize this properly the egg is on their face.
Bill O'Reilly is correct. Children will learn tolerance from their parents and in normal contact with other children.
We are not living in Russia... Nor are we ignorant. Tolerance must be learned the normal way. Not in a group of thousands of people who the children do not know.
Media Matters is frankly a LEFTIST organization that only likes those that feel only liberals are correct and anyone right of center are wrong. Shame on you MM.
Yes, Media Matters, how could you point out an egregious example of conservative misinformation? How dare you?? Don't you care about the CHILDREN??!?? (Much weeping and gnashing of teeth) Let us go back to teaching our children the "normal" way...er...you know..ahh..the normal...way...
okay, I'm not good at this righteous right-wing indignation thing. What's the "normal" way again??
I'm really disturbed...I have visions of all these poor children being force-fed tolerance at the ball park. Oh, the humanity!
Don't you understand that tolerance must be learned in the normal way, not in groups of 1000 strangers, the way they taught tolerance in Russia?
Shame on the Russians too !
I love Friday the 13th troll fests.
Look, you guys are making fun of BCVB. But really, he has a point.
We liberals have forced parents to tell their children to be tolerant, but then the situation arises where the parents are sitting at a ballpark with their kids among thousands of homosexuals to make fun of and ridicule - well, it's totally not fair. And confusing.
The Padres should be ashamed.
I never thought of that aspect. I've been too busy making fun of right wingers.
Thanks for setting me straight. (no pun intended)
Yes, we certainly don't want to introduce children to tolerance before they're ready...do we?
I mean, just think what could happen.
The children, in their moment of confusion, may stop playing with their iPod or GameBoy, think, and then ask their parents a question. (Gasp) To which the parents then have to use their maturity and wisdom gained through years of, oh, I don't know, living and breathing with fellow human beings and then engage their children in a discussion about love and happiness and trust and stuff. What in the world were they thinking?!?!?
I love posts that begin with "I'm not homophobic" (wait for it....) BUT..." I just know some rancid, cowpie of a bigoted comment is ready to plop. No disappointment here. A gathering of thousands of gays is not any less "normal" than a gathering of thousands of Rotarians, Elks, Baptists or even Republicans. Please! Do you fear they gathered at the stadium to have public anal sex? The fact you object to their very existence proves you are indeed a bigot. Get over it! The reason why gays travel openly in groups of thousands is 1) to prove how indistinguishable they are from "normal" groups of thousands and 2) to avoid getting lynched by "normal" people.
I'm still wondering what not living in Russia has to do with it. Are the Russians known for their tolerance of gays? Maybe those Cossack scalplocks had a special meaning...
Nerzog , as I understand it, the Russians were bad, not for teaching tolerance, but for doing it in very large groups, rather than in small groups, or one-on-one.
And the Padres have egg on their face for not alerting the stoopid that other people would be attending the game.
additionally, everything should be done in the normal way.
A rancid cowpie of bigotry ready to plop.
My aikido instructor, who is alos a teacher, is fond of reminding us of something very profound.
"Confusion is good, because it means there is something to be learned"
Looks like O'Reilly doesn't want to learn to be tolerant. That's for wimps, and other sissies who don't masturbate to John Wayne movies.
Very wise indeed. An opportunity to identify fix a faulty premise.
That possibly puts O'Reilly's apparent apprehension at such moments of confusion in a clearer perspective as well. I can only imagine such moments of moral and/or philosophical uncertainty were utterly terrifying to the young Billy-boy.
Ok, I have to jump in here. You know what will really turn a 10 year old boy's head? A nicely endowed female chest in a tight tank top. With no bra? He'll trip and fall down those treacherous cement stairs so popular up in the upper decks. Unless those homosexual fellas are wearing feather boas, not many kids will even notice several men or ladies sitting together.
When I worked at Disneyland, ever year the "Los Angeles Restaurant Association " would have a "special" night at the happiest place in the world. Said organization was a front for all the truly outrageous homosexuals to have a fabulous time together on Snow White's adventure and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Back in the late '70's there was no way the Disney mgt could openly host a gay night or whatever, despite the very high ratio of gay to straight employees. By truly outrageous I'm talking about those colorfull characters who spend $4,000 to dress up like the Queen of England. Don't scoff!! I worked with a bartender who lived to dress up as the queen and would at every party we had!!
Not ALL ten year old boys heads get turned by a well endowed female. I went to hundreds of games as a boy and NEVER gave a damn about women's breasts. They could have walked around naked for all I cared. I was much more interested in the players and the hot men in the stadium.
That's the other thing not being considered in this discussion. A certain percentage of these and ALL kids are gay. Seeing well adjusted, non-stereotypical adults certainly WON'T be confusing to them.
I wish to God I had known that gay people existed and were perfectly normal when I was a kid. It would have saved me years of fear, self hate, sadness and dispair. Of course this is EXACTLY what Bill O'Reilly wants gay kids to suffer through in hopes that making their lives miserable will make them straight or at the very least psychologically damage them enough that they will be easy prey for abuse from assholes like him throughout their adult lives.
That is precisely why these public displays of gay pride, in the presence of children, upset him so much.
He can cry and rant all he wants, America is leaving him and the rest of his bigoted dark ages ilk behind as we continue to live in the 21st century.
Did the Queen serve drinks at these affairs? And please, tell us more about Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (I've never been to Disneyland)
Mary, besides all the info you can find with Google, Mr. Toad's Wild ride is a nice dark ride that consenting riders can fiddle around with each other for a bit. My gay friends particualarly like the over the top campiness and the effiminate nature of Mr. Toad himself. For little kids it is truly terrifying, at least as scary as the matterhorn bobsleds. The queen would NEVER serve her guests. Besides being the wittiest, most flamboyant gay I knew, Dave threw fantastic parties. The over all attitude of the staff at Disneyland in those days would shock the public. We were a dark well of hedonistic, fornicating fun loving youngsters, hell bent on sex, drugs and rock'n roll. Google "banana ball" to get some first hand accounts of the annual summer staff party. Hint, "if you don't get laid at the banana ball , it's on backwards" un-official motto. Lest you think it was just us budding liberals, I know of at least one republican US district court judge who had her belly full of beer and her legs up in the air in the parking lot!!
Pit, as a native Orange Countian, I have a special place in my heart for the Voyage through inner Space (sponsored by Monsanto !).The one where you got shrunk down to moecule size.
Long, slow-moving and dark.Before I had a car in which to experience certain "acts", I fondly remember a high school trip to Disneyland and the young lady I persuaded onto the ride.What a trooper she turned out to be. ;0)
Someone should pull Olbermann's teeth.
With his obsession of Bill O'Reilly he sounds pretty dangerous.
rjp
I wonder....if a home run was hit into gay section and if a guy caught it and threw it back onto the field, would little Johnny look at his father and say:
Or will his father explain to him that the other team just scored? WWBD? What would Bill do?
O'Reilly says he's in favor of same-sex marriage. At the same time, this item on his television show suggests fairly clearly (to me, at least) that he still clings to that old silly fundamentalist notion that homosexuality is a lifestyle that one chooses, a belief rooted in ignorance and fear. Come on, Bill. Join the rest of us here in the 21st century.
I'm proud to be a secular progressive. I'm not sure exactly what that is, but if Bill-O doesn't like it, it must be a good thing.
You're RIGHT! Just ask a kid in Catholic School! Talk about confused! The priests preach about marriage but are gay! The priests are males but wear dresses! They teach about Jesus but forget about love, tolerance, forgiveness. Sounds bad for kids INDEED.
O'Reilly seems to make the same assumption many people do. He confuses homosexuality and pedophilia. If someone is gay it does not mean he is a child molester. Just one more example of the big mouth not knowing what he is talking about.
You might be on to something. Could it be? Is Bill O'Reilly a. . .do I dare ask? . . . a gay child molestor???
If all these conservative "commentators" stopped worrying so much about other peoples sex lives and started concentrating on their own, maybe their wives would stop leaving them.
What is the purpose of having a "Gay Pride Night" at a baseball game anyway? Could the Padres be pandering to a minority and if so why?
Baseball is dying nationwide, and the Padres are obviously picking up on a local prominent minority and trying to get them into the game as a way to entice them to return or become fans.
Gay Night is really just another version of a Bobblehead night. It's not pandering as much as it just is desperate marketing.
Baseball is dying? Really?...
I guess someone forgot to tell the 2.7 million people who have already bought Brewers tickets this year.
i sure dont want to explain to my child why hundreds of same sex people are all over eachother. the baseball park used to be a place where you could bring children for innocent fun without cultural explanations. every one of my gays friends couldnt agree more but the leftist mindset on this site that want thing every thing goes kind of atmosphere which is simply foolish. but, this is media matters for you thats for sure. oriellys segment was great and unlike this site, informative, balanced and fair to all-period.
Isn't it amazing that the cause of all but an infinitissimal few homosexuals is t heterosexual sex? I have yet to hear of a test-tube homosexual ...