Chalk another one up for radio host David Pakman.
Pakman, who has interviewed such anti-gay "luminaries as Peter LaBarbera, Paul Cameron, Bryan Fischer, and Gordon Klingenschmitt, today interviewed Truth4Time member and wannabe anti-gay activist Michael Brown.
Apparently Brown thought he could boggart the interview, thereby turning it into a monologue of his anti-gay views.
Truth Wins Out breaks it down:
As usual, David’s done his homework, calmly citing, among other things, the oeuvre of prominent Yale historian John Boswell, who wrote prolifically about the intersection of LGBT issues and religion. Brown’s only response is to dismiss Boswell completely, because after all (as Brown says), he “practically died of AIDS.”
And it only goes downhill from there. When Pakman challenges Brown’s tired (and totally discredited) talking point about the immutability of the historical definition of marriage, Brown resorts to condescension. Check out the video below — he tries to lecture Pakman on how to prepare for an interview, seizing the opportunity to hawk his self-published book (which, apparently, must be a respectable source, despite the fact that no publishing house — reputable or otherwise — would print it, because it includes “1500+ endnotes and massive research.” (Hmmmm, overcompensating much?) When Pakman presses Brown further to cite the specific sources he drew upon to formulate his exclusionary “historical definition of marriage,” he suddenly chickens out remembers that he has something else to do, saying that he didn’t realize this wasn’t a “serious interview” and mischaracterizing Pakman as a ‘gotcha’ journalist out to “[set] people up for quotes.” Then, after essentially telling Pakman again to read his book before he interviews him again, Brown hangs up.
It just goes to show that when religious right figures are asked serious questions about their claims, they can't handle the pressure
2 comments:
Have we not seen this time and time again with the religious wrong! Oh by the way also the religious wrong seem to take it very personally...did anyone see the steam coming out of Browns ears? lmfao
I hate to say it because I'm not sympathetic to Brown, but I can see the point that Pakman's question was kind of silly. Definitions don't work that way in law -- there are bodies of precedent. The better question about the historical definition of marriage in the United States has to do with the fact that common law on the matter originally included coverture, where the wife did not have legal rights distinct from her husband. Laws passed in the mid-19th century eliminated coverture (with vestiges remaining into the 20th), thereby redefining marriage. I also would have liked for Pakman to press Brown on how he thinks gay couples, whose existence Brown acknowledge, should be treated under the law, and why.
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