Posted on 03/04/2007 2:52:03 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Outspoken U.S. conservative columnist Ann Coulter is drawing fire from Republicans and Democrats alike after publicly using a derogatory gay slur in reference to Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards.
"Ann Coulter not only once again went out of her way to use a nasty epithet, she pushed her offensiveness up a notch," Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, said on Sunday.
Coulter made the comments on Friday during a speech at the influential American Conservative Union's Political Action Conference, calling Edwards a "faggot."
"We conservatives have enough trouble overcoming the false things that are said about us without paying for a platform upon which we shoot ourselves annually in the foot," Ridenour, whose group helped sponsor the conference, said in a statement on the center's Web site.
Coulter said the comment was a joke and on her Web site she carried the speech with the comment, "I'm so ashamed, I can't stop laughing." She then said Edwards' campaign chairman's main job was "fronting for Arab terrorists."
Edwards, a 2008 presidential contender and the party's 2004 vice presidential candidate, said Coulter's comments were "un-American and indefensible."
"The kind of hateful language she used has no place in political debate or our society at large," he wrote in comments posted to his Web site on Saturday.
"I believe it is our moral responsibility to speak out against that kind of bigotry and prejudice every time we encounter it," Edwards added.
The candidate also posted a video of Coulter's comments, asking supporters to raise $100,000 in so-called "Coulter Cash" for his campaign to "fight back against the politics of bigotry."
Coulter's Friday speech raised objections from Republican presidential hopefuls Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as well as Democrats.
In a statement on Sunday, Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said, "It was an offensive remark. Political discourse ought to be more substantive and thoughtful." McCain, the only contender who did not attend the event, and Giuliani called Coulter's words inappropriate, according to the New York Times.
"Ann Coulter's words of hate have no place in the public sphere much less our political discourse," Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts said in a statement released on Saturday.
Several conservatives were also quick to denounce Coulter's comments in a variety of online columns.
Coulter is no stranger to controversy.
At the same conference last year, she used the word "raghead" -- a slur against Muslims -- in referring to U.S. homeland security policies. In a column published in the National Review after the September 11 attacks she urged an invasion of Muslim countries and forced conversion to Christianity.
Kennedy added a great deal of moral clout to the opposition, didn't he?
The point of the joke was
the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards,That's what the line was about
it turns out you have to go into rehabwas weasling so she could later claim she never implied Edwards was a faggot.
They had no set up, she never mentioned PC, or explained the background, which would not have been obvious to people who don't follow chick TV shows.
I love AC even more for this! Go Ann!!!!!
dear Anne,
You go, girl! You're great whatever you do.
I don't recall you calling him a faggot, all you did
was using the word in the same sentence with his name. You did not call him a faggot, at least. Some one is getting nervous out there. So, sit back and laugh, as I am doing,
at these silly bloated hoo-for-alls.
Bullfrog
This is such a good point. How many lefties have gotten away with variants of Bush=Hitler? And not obscure ones either.
Why is it Reuters thinks that "faggot" is "a derogatory gay slur" ~
I'm sure in her tiny blonde mind that's what she was thinking, but it had no set-up. She sucks at comedy
If she had said
Then there's the PC disease.No problem
Everybody in America thinks John Edwards looks like a faggot, But say that and you get sent into rehab.
Yawn
She sucks at speaking. I have seen her about a dozen times (recently not by choice). I have learned that her slot is a good time to go take a piss. You won't miss anything of substance.
I have to agree that she slurred gays by implying that the Breck Girl might be one. How insulting to all homosexual men. She should immediately apologize to homosexuals everywhere for lowering their public image.
lol.. I need to go find the
AFP cut on this.. Thanks :-)
I'd be more distressed at the Democrats' response if they had shown even the slightest remorse for the last eight years of Bush comparisons to Adolf Hitler or the jokes equating Bush to portions of the female anatomy.
Since they haven't, they deserve what they get.
I'm glad you make that list. Keep it up. BTW were there that many threads on FR when Bill Mayer was disappointed because Cheney wasn't murdered?
"The point of the joke was that the last time somebody in the public eye called somebody a fag, they had to check in for retraining."
This is lost on most it seems.
"It was not a gay slur. It was about politically correct."
This point seems to have gone right over the head of most.
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