Several months ago, shortly after former NBA star Tim Hardaway stated that he hates gay people, Concerned Women for America weighed in, calling his statement “both unfortunate and inappropriate.”
Of course, CWA only found the remark “unfortunate and inappropriate” because it made it harder for groups like CWA to advance their own anti-gay agenda by “foment[ing] misperceptions of widespread homosexual ‘victimhood’ which the homosexual lobby has craftily manufactured.” CWA’s self-serving attempt to decry Hardaway’s bigoted and offensive remark was completely undermined by its own equally offensive statement that “It’s perfectly natural for people to be repelled by disordered sexual behaviors that are both unnatural, and immoral.”
Clearly, CWA missed the point about what was offensive about Hardaway’s statement.
Flash forward to earlier this week when right-wing radio and TV host Joe Scarborough, while discussing potential Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson and his younger wife Jeri, asked his guest “You think she thinks she works the pole?” – presumably a reference to the poles that strippers occasionally use on stage.
Once again CWA is outraged … and once again they completely miss the point:
Joe Scarborough’s banter … reflects attempts to mainstream porn into every day culture. Pornography shapes people’s view
of women – and not just the women in the pictures – as objects to be used for sexual pleasure. The proliferation of pornography and strip clubs does have an effect. It results in men viewing women as sexual objects instead of capable and intelligent human beings. Mainstream culture, from TV to clothes, has become saturated not with flirtatious sex, but crass, debasing, dehumanizing porn that encourages judging women by porn standards. Scarborough’s comments reflect and reinforce the normalization of porn.
At least this time around, CWA actually called for Scarborough to apologize, something they never did for Hardaway. But judging by their press release, it seems pretty clear that CWA is far more outraged by the supposed “’pornification’ of our culture” than with Scarborough’s sexist and misogynistic remark.
