El Rushbo and the Rocket Man
Written by Karl Frisch
Published
Rush Limbaugh's wedding photos have been making the rounds online and while Limbaugh and his new bride look positively happy in each and every shot (why wouldn't they?) one particular photo stood out to me:
Yep, El Rushbo with the Rocket Man himself.
When it was reported earlier this summer, I found myself thinking, “Why on earth would a noted homophobe like Limbaugh invite Elton John -- a gay man -- to play at his wedding?”
Well, according to Zev Chafets -- the Limbaugh biographer who has made a living of late heaping glowing praise on the radio talker – Rush doesn't hate gay people at all, in fact, he even supports “gay civil unions.”
Earlier this summer, Chafets wrote in the Wall Street Journal (emphasis added):
A lot of people were unpleasantly surprised to learn that Elton John, one of the world's most proudly prominent gay entertainers, played at Rush Limbaugh's Palm Beach wedding to Kathryn Rogers last Saturday night. Evangelicals voiced dismay that a pious fellow like Rush would give legitimacy to the libertine Sir Elton. Limbaugh-haters jeered at what they considered el Rushbo's hypocrisy.
[…]
On some social issues, like abortion, Limbaugh is a conventional conservative. On others he sounds a lot like Barack Obama. In an interview last summer he told me that he regards homosexuality as most likely determined by biology, considers other people's sex lives to be none of his business and supports gay civil unions. I'm pretty sure that Elton John's sexual orientation never even crossed Limbaugh's mind.
Chafets goes on to pin John's hiring on such issues as the age of Limbaugh's latest bride and the radio host's bad hearing.
So, is Chafet's characterization of Limbaugh's views on LGBT people demonstrated by the host's on-air comments?
You tell me.
Would someone who “regards homosexuality as most likely determined by biology, considers other people's sex lives to be none of his business and supports gay civil unions” so regularly gay-bait and demonize LGBT people?
Check out some of the worst from Limbaugh when it comes to the LGBT community after the jump.
Examples of Limbaugh's gay-baiting, demonizing LGBT community:
- Limbaugh: “Democrats who are cheering” Prop. 8 ruling are “cheering” judge “for weakening the U.S. Constitution”
- Limbaugh on LGBT Democrats: “There are others?”
- Limbaugh says Barney Frank is the reason shower curtains were removed in congressional men's locker room
- Limbaugh says Obama appointed “a pervert” as the safe schools czar
- Limbaugh forwards fisting smear, attacks Jennings as a “raging pervert”
- Rush: AP report on dejected gay marriage supporters is “chickification of the news”
- Limbaugh on HBO Obama documentary: “If a documentary could get anal poisoning, this one could”
- Referencing Prejean, Limbaugh calls Perez Hilton a “lunatic, radical, sick, gay blogger”
- Limbaugh: “there were some people out there who misconscrewed my Barney Frank comment about prowling around Uranus”
- Limbaugh still littering discussion of Obama and DOMA with mockery of gay community
- Limbaugh continues anti-LGBT innuendo while discussing Obama and DOMA
- Discussing Obama and DOMA, Limbaugh litters monologue with anti-LGBT innuendo
- Limbaugh echoes false claim that Hate Crimes bill “carv[es] out protection for perverts”
- Limbaugh uses Red River flooding to make “dike” jokes
- Limbaugh falsely asserted “Banking Queen” Barney Frank “created” subprime mortgage crisis
- Limbaugh: “Democrats will bend over, grab the ankles, and say, 'Have your way with me' ” to African-Americans and gays