Sadly, yes he did. Leon Gray, the only local host on Progressive Talk 680, struck a decidedly UN-PROGRESSIVE tone on his show today and in his blog, suggesting, stupidly, that homosexuality is a choice:
I will now cut my own throat… Gays and Lesbians wanted feel free to flaunt their sexuality, excuse me their sexual orientation, which without any doubt is a personal choice, and now have managed to force society to see it their way (meaning that their right)… or at least act like it.
Yes, you read that right. This is 2005, people, that's just ignorant as hell, and the LAST thing one would expect to hear on a PROGRESSIVE talk station.
I've always liked Leon personally, and known him as a Democratic stalwart. However, I would expect to hear that kind of homophobic bullshit on WREC or WCRV, but not on 680! I'm not yet ready to say he should be canned, but Jerry Dean needs to have a talk with him about this, because he ran off a hell of a lot of listeners today.
And, if you think I'M pissed, go read Autoegocrat at Pesky Fly's site. He says it better than I did.
5 comments:
Strange where these notions arise; it's disappointing and, perhaps more than we might want to ponder, revealing.
With Leon, I think "revealing" is the angle we should focus on.
MidtownMark said on the Flypaper Theory comments that he thinks Leon is worth saving, and I not only agree, but I'll go further than that: Leon Gray is indispensible.
We have to keep an eye on this issue, because if, just if, we can get Leon to see the light on this one, he's be wiser than any of us, because he will have been on both sides of the sort of smiling, friendly bigotry that we have all come to loathe.
Leon is getting fatigued by this, but it will undoubtedly come up again. I'm not throwing Leon overboard, but I am surely going to prepare for the next time this issue comes up on his show, and I will make a special effort to call in. There were some very good callers today (day two).
Look at this key paragraph again -- the only one of its kind in a long, somewhat obscurely stated monologue that covers the waterfront (somewhat foggily, to stay with the metaphor):
"I will now cut my own throat… Gays and Lesbians wanted feel free to flaunt their sexuality, excuse me their sexual orientation, which without any doubt is a personal choice, and now have managed to force society to see it their way (meaning that their right)… or at least act like it."
Although the spirit of this paragraph is clear, the letter of it is confounding. Does he mean "they're" instead of "their" the second time around? And, whichever word he means, what the hell does that last sentence mean? Leon needs to be chastised for obscurity, first of all.
Do you think he forgot "it's" as in it's their right?
BTW, I emailed Jerry Dean at 680 with this post; I'm curious to see if he will respond...
The link under "yes he did" takes you right to his blog and the offending article, there is a comments area there...
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