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There was a period of time about a year or two ago when I used to frequently listen to Randi Rhodes on Air America while driving home from work. (The station eventually failed and was taken over by Catholic radio -- LOL!)
It was bizarre. Nearly every day Rhodes would manage to work in one or more snide comments about Jeff Gannon. Remember Gannon? He was the conservative reporter with "Talon News" allowed into the White House press corps, who turned out to be gay, and to have worked as a male escort, or some such, at one point.
Well, that story was from early 2005, had a shelf life of maybe a few weeks, and here's Randi Rhodes more than two years later, still bringing it up nearly every day!!! Like I say, it was just weird. And she would use the most outrageous terminology; even the one rhyming with "sludge slacker"!!!!!
There were all manner of other completely gratuitous homophobic comments she would make. For instance one day she played sound bites from some interview or debate involving Richard Perle. Well, you can probably imagine all the hatred a leftist like Rhodes spouted about a "neo-con" like Perle. But mixed in with the usual slurs, Rhodes kept going on about how he "sounded gay," just as if that was a damning indictment on a par with accusations of treason, fraud, war-mongering, and the like.
I heard so much of this -- granted it was never in a single, extended rant -- but so much, so consistently, so often, in bits and pieces, that I actually came to believe that, despite being a solid leftist, Rhodes really had some kind of problem with homosexuals.
So anyway, one day I'm driving home, get bored enough, and switch on the Air America station. Rhodes has some kind of gay activist on the air, and Rhodes is fawning all over him. And Rhodes is going on and on, congratulating herself about how she's always been a strong pro gay rights advocate and activist. This is the same women who'd called a gay man a f****-p***er on the air just a few weeks before!!!!!!
I nearly drove off the road. But Randi was clearly being 100 percent sincere. She clearly saw herself as pro homosexual. But somehow it was, in her mind, entirely consistent with this to savagely attack homosexuals, using the most vile, graphic hate speech, so long as the targets were conservatives.
It is, of course, the same thing leftists do with blacks, with women, and many other groups. But still, it was something of a revelation.
That should be the response to any of them who use the term. Something like "How Dare You use an Immature, Gay-bashing term to describe political protestors. You sir, owe an apology to all gays."