Bill O’Reilly to Gay Parents - Let them eat cupcakes!
December 29, 2006: A few years ago, a friend of mine who was a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Journalist’s Association paid me a wonderful compliment. He told me that Bill O’Reilly had recently made a presentation to the group. He said that O’Reilly told the audience that while he had been undecided about whether or not gay people should have children; a recent article he read in Newsweek had convinced him that LGBT people could make good parents.
The nice thing about it was that the article was written by me. You can read it here.
Well, it’s 2006, and not only is O’Reilly no longer a fan of gay parenting, but he’s become completely unhinged. How else to explain his comments in a recent interview with the wonderful Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Pride (also present for the interview was journalist Norah Vincent):
CHRISLER: Yeah. You know, look, the reality is — is that research’s been done, and — and there is 30 years of that research, and it’s incontrovertible. There is no deficit.
Children do equally as well when they have two moms and two dads, or whether they have a mom and a dad, and if you’re really concerned –
O’REILLY: Well, that’s your story, but you know the Family Research Council and all the other have all the other data that says that is not the case, that there is a — something missing in the emotional realm, but I don’t even want to get into that. Nature dictates that a dad and a mom is the optimum, does it not?
CHRISLER: No, because the reality is they’re bad dads and bad moms, and they’re are –
O’REILLY: The nature doesn’t dictate that.
CHRISLER: You know –
O’REILLY: So what you’re saying to me is that a lesbian couple and a gay-guy couple are just as equipped to raise a child as heterosexual parents? That’s what you’re saying?
CHRISLER: Absolutely. Yeah, without a doubt –
O’REILLY: No difference.
CHRISLER: — because love –
O’REILLY: No difference.
CHRISLER: — stability, commitment, kindness, caring, values, morals, discipline, guidance, that’s what really makes good parents, and if we want to be worried about what we’re going to talk about here, we should talk about what are the qualities of a parent that really make a difference for a child, and that’s what it is.
O’REILLY: All right, well, I disagree with you. I’m going with nature. I’m going with — [free-lance journalist] Miss [Norah] Vincent, I’m going with — I’m throwing in with Mother Nature here and I’m going best-case scenario, dad and a mom. Am I a bigot?
VINCENT: No, you’re not a bigot for saying that, but nature is procreation, and we’re talking about something cultural called parenting.
O’REILLY: No, I’m talking about raising kids. I’m talking about — I know there are bad parents –
VINCENT: Well, there’s nothing inherent in biology –
O’REILLY: — and I know there are good gay parents. Absolutely, all right?
VINCENT: OK.
O’REILLY: But I’m talking optimum, best for the kid, having a mom and a dad. Are you going to call me a bigot for that?
VINCENT: Not at all, no. It’s a legitimate preference.
O’REILLY: Are you going to, Miss Chrisler, call me a bigot for that?
CHRISLER: Nope, I’m just going to call you wrong –
O’REILLY: Wrong.
CHRISLER: — which you are. So –
O’REILLY: You know, why wouldn’t — why wouldn’t nature then make it that anybody could get pregnant by eating a cupcake? You know? You know, you just throw –
CHRISLER: Well, we’d have –
O’REILLY: You take Mother Nature.
CHRISLER: We’d have a lot of people, wouldn’t we?
O’REILLY: You know the old commercial — don’t fool around with Mother Nature? What you’re doing is you’re taking Mother Nature and you’re throwing it right out the window, and I just think it’s crazy. I really do. And that’s not based on religion or morals or — Annie [sic], you’re a good person, Norah’s a good person. All right? But it’s just that you say, “Hell with nature — the hell with it. We’re going to do what we want. It’s just as good. And you guys are crazy.” And that’s what you’re saying.
Hey, speaking of “crazy” Bill – you’re nuts! Not only do you constantly interrupt your guests, not only do you dismiss the vast majority of credible research which proves that children raised by same-sex parents suffer no ill effects, and not only do you keep referring to “Mother Nature” as if you watched those Parkay commercials one too many times as a kid and now you’re fixated on an imaginary figure, but you somehow manage to work cupcakes into the discussion.
Cupcakes!
It reminds me of when the killer of Harvey Milk trotted out the “Twinkie Defense” as a justification for why he murdered his victim. This is the “Cupcake Argument.”
And can you prove that O’Reilly’s wrong? It’s undeniably true that no one can get pregnant by eating a cupcake, right? So then, doesn’t it stand to reason that it’s wrong for two parents of the same gender to raise a child together in a loving home? I mean, isn’t that connection as clear as day?
It is to Bill O’Reilly.
Maybe he should read my article again. Or have a cupcake.
BTW, I took the above transcription from Media Matters here. They make some excellent points, including these:
In fact, the American Psychological Association (APA), the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), and the Child Welfare League of America, among others, have all noted that credible scientific data shows that children suffer no harm from being reared by same-sex parents.
For instance, as Colorado Media Matters has noted (here and here), the American Psychological Association (APA) concluded in a 2005 study of lesbian and gay parenting that “[n]ot a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents.” The study also found that “the evidence to date suggests that home environments provided by lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support and enable children’s psychosocial growth.”