New Audio of Hannity's Homophobic History

01/03/2012 by Steve Rendall
http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/01/03/new-audio-of-hannitys-homophobic-history

Sean Hannity got his start in radio on UC Santa Barbara's KCSB in the late 1980s, where he got in trouble for promoting homophobia and disinformation about HIV and AIDS. I wrote about this in a 2003 Extra! profile of the then-Fox News show Hannity & Colmes:

After airing for less than a year, Hannity's weekly show was canceled in 1989, when KCSB management charged him with "discriminating against gays and lesbians" after airing two shows featuring the book The AIDS Coverup: The Real and Alarming Facts About AIDS (Independent, 6/22/89). Written by homophobic Christian-right activist Gene Antonio, the book crankily argued that AIDS could be spread by casual contact, including coughs, sneezes and mosquito bites. Antonio charged that the government, medical establishment and media covered up these truths in the service of "the homosexual movement."

When Antonio appeared by phone on one of the shows, Hannity and his guest repeatedly slurred gay men. At one point, according to the UCSB campus newspaper the Daily Nexus (5/25/89), Hannity declared: "Anyone listening to this show that believes homosexuality is a normal lifestyle has been brainwashed. It's very dangerous if we start accepting lower and lower forms of behavior as the normal." According to the campus paper, Antonio responded by calling gay men "a subculture of people engaged in deviant, twisted acts."

When a fellow KCSB broadcaster called the show to challenge the host and his guest, Hannity pointed out that the caller, a lesbian, had a child through artificial insemination, and Antonio dubbed the child a "turkey-baster baby." When the caller took issue with that "disgusting" remark, Hannity followed up with "I feel sorry for your child" (Independent, 6/22/89; KCSB, 4/4/89).

This information as indicated was gleaned from local Santa Barbara and UCSB print media. At the time, I was unable to get audio of Hannity's KCSB shows, a situation now remedied by KCSB programmers Elizabeth Robinson and Richard Flacks, who have packaged two of the original Hannity shows in a station archival retrospective, "50 Years of People-Powered Radio."

What Hannity said on the air more than 20 years ago would perhaps not be overly relevant today but for the fact that he has always denied being homophobic...and his homophobia continues: For instance, reacting to the 2009 Academy Awards broadcast featuring a montage of romantic film kisses (not exactly a new feature of cinema), Hannity paraphrased his wife in protesting the inclusion of same-sex kisses in the montage (Hannity, 2/23/09): "They keep showing the scenes of men kissing. And I'm thinking, do we have to expose our children to more and more sex, more and more violence, you know, more and more controversy?"

Fox News’ Hannity rails against Halloween

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13447.html

Fox News’ Hannity rails against Halloween, which ‘teaches kids to be liberals’
Posted November 2nd, 2007

Last week, The Onion, which is a satirical publication, ran a very amusing editorial cartoon, mocking right-wing attitudes. The cartoon asked, “Halloween: What is it teaching our kids?” It depicted a kid trick-or-treating with a bag that read, “Something for Nothing,” under the caption, “Everyone deserves hand-outs!”

Proving once again that today’s right is practically impossible to satirize, Fox News’ Sean Hannity actually made the same argument, on the air, in the hopes of labeling Halloween a “liberal holiday.”

On the October 31 edition of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity claimed that “Halloween is a liberal holiday” and “is teaching our kids to be liberals.” Hannity explained that “we’re teaching kids to knock on other people’s doors and ask for a handout.” Co-host Alan Colmes responded by asking if that meant that Christmas is a “liberal holiday.” Colmes asserted that Halloween represents “the act of giving,” and asked: “Isn’t that a Christian thing, to give, to share with your community?” Hannity replied: “Not to teach your kids to beg for a handout.”

In all sincerity, I thought Media Matters was kidding about this, until I watched the clip. Hannity, apparently in all seriousness, said we shouldn’t teach “our children to beg for something for free.” He concluded, “You’re teaching your kids to beg for a handout.”

In the broader cultural context, I think a sea-change of sorts may be underway. The caricature of late has been that of a politically-correct, liberal intellectual going around denigrating the things “regular people” enjoy. I wonder if Hannity is helping push the pendulum in the other direction — all activities should be measured against a right-wing worldview. If they’re perceived as politically heretical, they should be dismissed.

Hannity, in other words, seems anxious to push conservatism away from the mainstream. If we’re lucky, he’ll keep it up.

Just out of curiosity, I checked out Focus on the Family’s take on Halloween, assuming that if any high-profile conservatives would hate the holiday, it’d be the Dobson crowd.

Here’s the official Focus take on Halloween:

Whereas it can be argued that Christmas is a Christian holiday with Christian origins that has suffered the effects of growing secularism, Halloween can be traced to distinctly pagan sources. It is reasonable, then, that many believers would find some aspects of its celebration disturbing. I agree with them in that regard.

The traditional emphasis upon the occult, witches, devils, death, and evil sends messages to our kids that godly parents can only regard with alarm. There is clearly no place in the Christian community for this “darker side” of Halloween.

Even here, however, there is a place for some harmless fun. Kids love to dress up and pretend. If the Halloween experience is focused on fantasy rather than the occult, I see no harm in it. Make costumes for your children that represent fun characters, such as Mickey Mouse or an elderly grandmother, and then let them go door-to-door asking for treats. This side of Halloween can be thoroughly enjoyable for the little ones.

Congratulations, Hannity, you’re to the right of Focus on the Family on a pagan holiday.

It’s ‘Convenient’ To Keep U.S. Troops In Iraq

Quote of the Week:

One of the things, though, that I think the antiwar crowd has not considered is that, if we’re putting the Americans right within their arms’ reach, they don’t have to come to Wall Street to kill Americans. They don’t have to knock down the trade center. They can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you’re a terrorist.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/08/morris-iraq

Morris: It’s ‘Convenient’ To Keep U.S. Troops In Iraq So Terrorists Can Kill Them ‘Around The Corner’

President Bush has repeatedly argued that the United States needs to “eliminate terrorist threats abroad, so we do not have to face them here at home.”

Last night on Hannity and Colmes, right-wing pundit Dick Morris also claimed that we need to keep U.S. troops in Iraq so that terrorists don’t come to the United States. But he argued that we need to put “Americans right within their [terrorists’] arms’ reach” so that they have the opportunity to “kill Americans” there. He added that therefore, “they don’t have to come to Wall Street to kill Americans. They don’t have to knock down the Trade Center. They can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you’re a terrorist.”

Withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq doesn’t mean that violence will follow them to the United States. As former White House counterterrorism director Richard Clarke notes:

Of course, nothing about our being “over there” in any way prevents terrorists from coming here. Quite the opposite, the evidence is overwhelming that our presence provides motivation for people throughout the Arab world to become anti-American terrorists.

A recent survey of military and diplomatic experts also concluded that “likelihood that enemy combatants from Iraq might follow departing U.S. forces back to the United States is remote at best.” But as the Army recently warned, the longer we stay in Iraq, the more casualties will rise.
Posted by Amanda May 8, 2007