Garrison Keillor Cracks Gay Joke

"Well Jim and John had to share a room one night in a hotel. Jim said 'I snore so bad I doubt you'll sleep that well.' And John kissed him on the cheek. He said 'Sweetheart, it's alright.' Jim went and sat in a chair and he stayed awake all night." - Garrison Keillor, in a song he performed this weekend on A Prairie Home Companion. Hear the bit at the 34:30 mark. Keillor has had to apologize in the past for mocking "flamboyant" gay men. (Via Aksarbent)

Pew Ranks "Trusted" News Outlets

From the Pew Research report:

Those with consistently conservative political values are oriented around a single outlet—Fox News—to a much greater degree than those in any other ideological group: Nearly half (47%) of those who are consistently conservative name Fox News as their main source for government and political news. Far fewer choose any other single source: Local radio ranks second, named by 11%, with no other individual source named by more than 5% of consistent conservatives. Those with mostly conservative views also gravitate strongly toward Fox News – 31% name it as their main source, several times the share who name the next most popular sources, including CNN (9%), local television (6%) and radio (6%) and Yahoo News (6%).

On the left of the political spectrum, no single outlet predominates. Among consistent liberals, CNN (15%), NPR (13%), MSNBC (12%) and the New York Times (10%) all rank near the top of the list. CNN is named by just 20% of those with mostly liberal views, but still tops their list, followed by local television (11%) and NPR (9%). Both MSNBC and Fox News are mentioned by 5% of those who are mostly liberal. Those in other ideological groups name the New York Times, NPR and MSNBC less frequently as top news sources.

Respondents with a roughly equal mix of liberal and conservative values also have a diffuse mix of news providers. CNN (20%) and local television (16%) are the most frequently-named top sources, with a long list of other news sources named by fewer than one-in-ten. Fox News (8%) is among the most-named sources in this “long tail,” along with Yahoo News (7%) and Google News (6%), both of which primarily aggregate and highlight news produced by other outlets.

For the record, I highly trust last place Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner.

NPR: Gays Don't Like Carl DeMaio

NPR's StoryCorps Animates A Man's Tale Of Parents' Rejection For Being Gay

It's a cartoon but you still might want a tissue.

(Tipped by JMG reader Chris)

SAGE Partners With NPR's Storycorps

Via press release:

SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders) and the renowned oral history organization, StoryCorps, are proud to announce a new partnership that will help identify stories from LGBT older people around the country for StoryCorps’ “OutLoud” initiative, which is dedicated to recording, preserving, and sharing LGBTQ stories from across America. StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide people of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Over the past decade, StoryCorps has collected more than 50,000 interviews, archiving these recordings at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and broadcasting selections on NPR. Over the next year, SAGE and its local affiliates around the country will work with StoryCorps to record stories at their locations in Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco, as well as through a traveling “MobileBooth” that will visit towns and cities in Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

SAGE just completed a daylong taping at their NYC location.

Scott Lively Speaks To NPR

Hate group leader Scott Lively appeared on NPR yesterday to defend his campaign against LGBT people around the world. An excerpt:

MARTIN: Well, you know, this law, though, has been denounced by the United Nations, by U.S. officials, including the Secretary of State and the president. A number of European nations have said that they're suspending aid to the country because they believe that this is a fundamental violation of human rights, particularly to criminalize relations between consenting adults. Are they all gay bullies?

LIVELY: Well, you're talking about government agencies. It's a little different than gay activists. Although, there are gay activists in government, and often they are bullies. But to get to the whole point about human rights, that's just simply nonsense. Sodomy is not a human right. I'm an attorney. I majored in human rights, and I can tell you that was - this idea that homosexual sodomy represents a human right is a brand-new invention of the late - latter part of the 20th century by hard-left cultural Marxists. And it actually supplants genuine human rights for religious freedom and family values.

The full transcript and an audio player are at the link.

(Tipped by JMG reader Jacob)

Interviewed By NPR New Hampshire

This morning I was interviewed by New Hampshire Public Radio's Word Of Mouth show about yesterday's comments by Pope Francis.  Listen here.  Towards the end, we also touched on the Russian vodka boycott. The show airs at 2:00PM Eastern today.

Minnesota Marriage Bingo

Via Minnesota Public Radio. (Tipped by JMG reader Daniel)

The Thing That Ate Its Own Brain 14 With Victoria Jackson As The Thing

This is what was going on while I was sitting in radio row at the DNC while waiting for my turn on SiriusXM. I thought I might be on this clip in the background, but she whipped the camera around too quickly. When the NPR guy walked away is when I got homofascist cooties on her.

AFA Boycotts Schweddy Balls

The American Family Association is calling for a national boycott of Ben & Jerry's because of their latest flavor, Schweddy Balls. They've also sent the ice cream maker a letter demanding a halt to the flavor's distribution. From an AFA press release:

Ben & Jerry's announced their newest ice cream flavor which sounds anything but appealing. Schweddy Balls is the best they could come up with. The vulgar new flavor has turned something as innocent as ice cream into something repulsive. Not exactly what you want a child asking for at the supermarket. In the past, Ben & Jerry's has released controversial ice creams, like a special edition of Chubby Hubby called Hubby Hubby last year which celebrated gay marriage. It seems that offending customers has become an annual tradition for Ben & Jerry's.

War, natural disasters, poverty, ICE CREAM. Priorities!

Schweddy Balls Ice Cream

It exists.

LISTEN: The Book Of Mormon

JMG reader Evan tips us that NPR is streaming the cast recording of The Book Of Mormon, which garnered 14 Tony nominations last week. Today only, folks.

Rep. Weiner Mocks GOP Over NPR Bill

I love this guy so much, it should be illegal.

Selective Punishment

GOP Congressional Group Plans To Cut Federal Funding For The Arts To ZERO

A coalition of Tea Party-backed Congress members headed by wingnut Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) plans to cut 100% of all federal funding for the arts.

A group of conservative Republicans, called the Republican Study Committee, revealed a new plan on Thursday to cut federal funding for arts down to zero. This means the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities would be left in the cold. Not to mention the potential hit at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Run by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the over 150-person group's plan, the Spending Reduction Act of 2011, would "save" $167.5 million pulled from the NEA and the Humanities endowment and $445 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They are forecasting that this erasure of cultural funding would reduce federal spending by $2.5 trillion over the next decade.

FRC's Tony Perkins: Our Hate Speech Deserves To Be Heard On NPR

"This week another group that demands the celebration of homosexuality called on National Public Radio to exclude the viewpoint of Family Research Council and other conservatives because we 'have nothing productive to bring to the table.'

"We are all agreed that every suicide by a 'gay'-identified teenager is a tragedy. And there are not two sides to the issue of bullying--we are all agreed that no one deserves to be bullied and that bullies should be punished. But there most certainly are two sides to the claims that orthodox theology and pro-family public policies are to blame for such bullying and such suicides, and the media has an obligation to air both sides, not just attacks by homosexual activists. In their definition of tolerance, the truth that would prevent a young person entering into homosexuality, or that change is possible for those seeking to leave the homosexual lifestyle, must be silenced." - Family Research Council head Tony Perkins.

Tony Perkins: Gay Kids Kill Themselves Because They Know They're Abnormal

Tony Perkins appeared on NPR today to declare that the rate of suicides among LGBT youths is so high because those kids know they are freaks. And not because they're taught every day of their hopeless lives that God hates them. Via Right Wing Watch:

Tony Perkins, president of the evangelical Family Research Council, says gay activists are exploiting the concern over bullying — and twisting the facts. "There's no correlation between inacceptance of homosexuality and depression and suicide," he says. Rather, Perkins says, there is another factor that leads kids to kill themselves. "These young people who identify as gay or lesbian, we know from the social science that they have a higher propensity to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict." Homosexuality is "abnormal," he says, and kids know it, which leads them to despair.

Repulsive and typically full of Christianist love. But what the FUCK was NPR doing hosting Tony Perkins? Do they bring on the KKK to discuss affirmative action? Would they give airtime to Faisal Shahzad to provide an opposing view on the political value of car bombs? Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council are spending millions of dollars every fucking month to enable the murders and suicides of LGBT Americans. What about that is unclear to NPR?

NPR Fires Host Juan Williams Over Muslim Comment, Wingnuts Go Berserk

National Public Radio has fired host Juan Williams (who also does political commentary for Fox) after he said on the Bill O'Reilly Show that seeing Muslim-looking people on airplanes makes him nervous. And all of Teabagistan is going nuts.

Williams, who is also an analyst for Fox News, told Fox today that he was not given a chance to defend himself. "'I don't even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball to eyeball, person to person and have a conversation," he said. "I've been there more than 10 years. We don't have a chance to have a conversation about this." On an appearance of Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," on Monday Williams, 56, said, "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country, but when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

Williams' Fox News colleague Mike Huckabee says that the federal government should now suspend all funding for NPR.

"NPR has discredited itself as a forum for free speech and a protection of the First Amendment rights of all and has solidified itself as the purveyor of politically correct pabulum and protector of views that lean left. While I have often enjoyed appearing on NPR programs and have been treated fairly and objectively, I will no longer accept interview requests from NPR as long as they are going to practice a form of censorship, and since NPR is funded with public funds, it IS a form of censorship. It is time for the taxpayers to start making cuts to federal spending, and I encourage the new Congress to start with NPR."

Mama Grizzly, who probably can't even spell NPR, see blood in the water.

AFA'S Bryan Fischer Tells Teabaggers: Attack On Social Issues Or Lose Christianists

The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer debated a Tea Party organizer on NPR to warn that unless the teabaggers embrace the AFA's positions on gay rights and abortion, they'll lose the support of the nation's Christianists. It's rather astonishing that NPR would provide a platform to a crazy like Bryan Fischer, who has called for homosexuals to be sent to internment camps, along with a zillion other outrageous things.

(Tipped by JMG reader Jack)

That Answer Would Be No

NPR reports that a billboard depicting Dubya and the words "Miss Me Yet?" has gone up along an Montana Minnesota highway. Nobody knows who's behind the sign yet, or whether it mocks the former president or the current one. I'm betting on current. And teabaggers.