Bryan Safi took this on in his That’s Gay segment. While his approach was humorous because that is what he does, we really need to recognize that these men represent a real danger.  As he sat there claiming to be talking about love and acceptance it was clear to me, that he was all about hatred.  I want to be sorry for Richard Cohen because I realize he has internalized heterosexism to the point that he actually hates himself but his actions only make it that much more difficult for other members of the GLBT community.  Shame on him.  If you must loathe yourself fine but don’t do it in such a way that others are so adversely affected.

I love that he flat out says “people who choose to be gay” and then in the very next answer declares he never says He Never Said Being Gay Was a Choice.

Oooh, poor little guy was the victim of a HATE CRIME! My heart positively BLEEDS for him! He’s just like all of those murdered Ugandan gays! Except, you know, not murdered.

Wow, what an unbelievable piece of trash. Nice to know he potentially ruined thousands of lives (and now even more in Uganda) in order to convince himself he’s not gay. Rachel skewered him masterfully, as usual.

He smarms.  He’s so smarmy.  “Oh, you know, in the next edition, we won’t say queers molest children, would that make you happy?”

Smarm off, you smarmy git.

Does he actually accuse Rachel of quote mining his book? Smarm.

How out of touch these people must be with their own sexuality, that they can think sexual orientation is so malleable.

I wonder what the ex-gay therapists think of people like Meredith Baxter. Do they consider her a victim of ex-straight therapy? Or do they think that being gay is the default sexual orientation for all, with heterosexuality requiring a constant battle to maintain?

I think Hector might have it. So many of the homophobes go on at such length about how hot the gay sex is that they’re valiantly not having. But even for the bigots who aren’t closeted, imagine the rush from feeling all manly (ahem) and superior for not giving in to urges they don’t particularly have.

Meanwhile, which was the post with the bugfsck crazy pastor going on about how boy scouts and altar boys were never heterosexually molested by their scoutmasters? I was wrong that it’s a logical impossibility (and he was just lying). Unfortunately.

I love when Maddow says “dude” in exasperation. I wish she had just savaged him, but I understand she has be slicker than that.

As a gay woman, I loathe the stereotypes and am well aware that they are 90% bullshit but seriously, that dude is so gay.  SO GAY.  He sparkles.  When he opened his mouth to speak, a purse fell out.  His inner queen is just dying to get out.

if mr. cohen is an “ex gay”, than i’m thomas jefferson. hmmmm, i have had sex with african american women, but it was with their full consent and invitation! oh, i didn’t go to william & mary, and i don’t live in charlottesville.

how dare ms. maddow have the utter temerity to quote from mr. cohen’s own books, that he purportedly wrote! the bitch! were it not for the harm mr. cohen causes, and the money he’s generating from his snake oil sales, i’d almost feel sorry for the guy. but i don’t.

I love how he told her to keep reading as if anything else that followed the comment about race being a contributing factor in any way refuted that.  My thought was there must have been something even MORE inflammatory after that and he was hoping that if she read that it would distract her. 

That’s all I got.

I must say that watching that last night was one of the highlights of a crappy week.

How she manages NOT to start yelling at that moron is amazing and awe inspiring.

“Well, sure we sent someone over to talk to the Ugandan Parliament about gay people and tell them being gay is horrible. Sure we donated multiple copies to the organization promoting the bill. But we don’t want gay people to be persecuted, oh nooooo.”

Fuckin’ A, B *and* C. What a disingenuous prick.

I love how Maddow can’t keep the extreme distaste off of her face the entire time. It’s like she’s having to clean something very unpleasant that a sick cat did on the floor.

Well, I laugh, but I really feel bad for her that she had to deal with that slimeball.

Oh, and the guy has a wife? I sure feel sorry for her. Holy shit.

Rachel is always good, but she was amazing last night.

Check out his anti-gay children’s book “Alfie’s Home”: http://www.amazon.com/Alfies-Home-Richard-Cohen/dp/0963705806

Puke.

No matter that Rachel was talking about gays being executioned or what: Cohen still kept the Halloween Jack-o-lantern smile pasted to his face.

No matter what true horrors Rachel was recounting.

If memory serves, he wavered only once, after Rachel repeated the question concerning a nonsensical passage in his book, “What does ‘race’ have to do with creating homosexuality?”

“Nothing,” Cohen had to admit, and only then did the grin wither, a little.

What an asshole.

I admire Rachel for not talking over him, not cutting him off, just letting him talk, talk, talk his way into a deeper hole.  There were several times that I thought she’d stop him, but she’d just sit back and give that look of “you’ve gotta be shittin’ me”.  Props to her for a classy job of dealing with a deeply unclassy guy.

This guy is one of those “everyone’s actions have consequences except MINE”.  He just says any inflammatory crap that comes into his pointy little head and when someone acts on it, he washes his hands of all involvement (see O’Reilly’s “Just because I said that Tiller was a baby-killer and should be murdered MANY times to a national audience, I didn’t mean for someone to take me SERIOUSLY!”).

Despicable.

He may smarm and sparkle, but mostly he slithers.

One of my old highschool friends back home is a pretty hard-core fundamentalist type. By mutual assent we mostly just don’t talk about this kind of thing; we get together and play D&D;. I can’t let it alone whenever he mentions that stupid, “love the sinner, hate the sin” phrase, though. It’s exactly like this guy, who says that he’s all about love and acceptance, except when he’s spreading horrible evil untruths that are getting people killed. You can’t say that you don’t hate the person, just everything about them, and expect people to accept that you don’t hate the person.

Yeah. And Maddow is awesome. Lovely at the end where she keeps reminding the viewers that he has no current accreditation.

I so have a desperate crush on Ms. Maddow.

“I am the victim of a Hate Crime!”

Those words actually came out of his mouth when asked about being kicked out of some accredited organization. I don’t even know what to say to that.

The look on Rachel’s face says it all ...