High school yearbook fallout: Psychiatry instructor updates Bill O’Reilly on modern thinking about lesbian and gay people.
Bill O’Reilly took time during one of his recent shows to discuss the Illinois lesbian couple voted “cutest couple” at their high school.
O’Reilly believes the students at the school voted for the girls because the student body – as a whole – wanted to play a prank on the teachers and administrators of the school.
He said, “the kids voted…this couple the cutest couple to tweak the adults…to cause trouble, to make an issue of the yearbook.”
Panelist Dr. Laura Berman – who teaches psychiatry at Northwestern University – responded:
“I don’t think that this is necessarily completely about them (the students) trying to tweak the adults and trying to be provocative. I think this is about – and we’ve seen this in other high schools, as well, it’s starting to become at least a small trend, if not a large one, that homosexuality is becoming, thankfully, more normalized, because this is the time in adolescence that kids are exploring their sexuality and in fact starting to identify what their sexual orientation is.”
Media Matters published the entire transcript. Here’s just a portion:
O’REILLY: …we don’t want to normalize homosexuality in a public way in an academic setting, high school, among minors. We don’t think that reflects…
BERMAN: Why?
O’REILLY: …how we feel about it. Well, for a number of reasons. One, social. It’s much more difficult to be homosexual than a heterosexual in America. Two, religious. There are people who believe that that kind of a life style…
In the clip below, O’Reilly talks about the national crisis of kids learning about sexuality.
O’Reilly’s opinions reach approximately 4 million viewers each month.
Just the sight of him makes me mad. I want to live my entire life without ever seeing his face. I’m sure the majority will agree.
“…we don’t want to normalize homosexuality…”???????
What we really don’t want to normalize are loudmouth blowhards who would marginalize people who aren’t like themselves. Apparently Bill forgot that silly founding ideal of all men being created equal…
The entire transcript would be hilarious, except that it reflects the beliefs of people who have power.
An entire political movement fueled by the most small-minded, petty, mean-spirited, narrow, frightened impulses… Is he right–are there really 50% or 60% of Americans who are so ignorant?
Wow. I didn’t know studies have shown 6% of the population is gay. That’s news to me. I’m skeptical. I think it’s more like 2 to 3% max.
But to the matter at hand, O’Reilly argues that gay teens should know that their place is one that ought remain shameful and taboo. His position supports the idea that gay teens should be sent a clear message that their life is poisonous and ought to be hidden. O’Reilly argues on behalf of barbarity and medieval world views. Period.
He is right that his point of view is shared by a large number of people. I judge those people to be immoral, fascist, ignorant, rigid minded, deluded, xenophobic, evil idiots. But that’s just me. I’m biased when it comes to bigots.
On the 6% thing, that may be correct. I’m not aware of a good comprehensive study done. Until there is no shame in liking people of your own gender, no study can be accurate.
However, All of these studies, and especially studies trying to find a genetic cause of homosexuality are off-target. It’s not about a choice to be gay or not to be gay. Everyone is forgetting the kinsey scale. Truth is, almost everyone is a little bit gay, and a little bit straight. Almost everyone is fundamentally bisexual.
Our culture has messed with our heads for years to deny this, and it has polarized us into straight and gay. The kids in high-school now, a lot of them, are beginning to realize that these lines are not so hard and fast. Hetero-flexibility and homo-flexibility are becoming more and more common.
These kids are RIGHT in their choice to tweak the adults, they are slowly, step by step, standing up and saying:
“Mom, Dad, Teachers, and Administrators;
“Your values are messed up. We don’t like your values, and we don’t plan on living by them. We are telling you now so that you can get ready, because when we get to make the rules — which is sooner than you think — the rules will be very different.”
Another thing: Bill O’Reilly, bad debate tactic. “I did this and this and this to help gay kids.” Never refer to your own work. It makes you defensive, pompous, arrogant, and petty. You should know better than that.
Of course, I don’t really mind, seeing as he deserves to sound defensive, since he’s attacking the fundamental right of every person to be themselves openly, without trying to pass, without suffering the fear of discrimination or abuse.
Actually, that would be the ‘christian’ estimate. They want to make it seem like such a small percentage as to be inconsequential. Some GLBT estimates are at the other extreme, 10%, which is over the top, even to me. So, 6% seems like a fair compromise and census data indicates a number closer to that figure.
Bill is known for trying to force his opinons on the rest of us and feels that being condasending like a bully is the way to go and he knows that hate sells and when he was a teacher, things were a lot different and thankfully society has progressed in their acceptence of people who are different,yet harmless to the social fabric ot America.