XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.atheism

Trump likes touching children down there.


The right-wing media's shameful history of defending pedophilia and
sexualizing children

Various right-wing figures have defended child molesters, worked with sex offenders, and attempted to normalize teen pregnancy and forced child
marriage




Over the past year, the far right’s obsession with accusing its opponents
of pedophilia has become a staple of the modern Republican playbook. Conservative media stars and GOP elected officials have used baseless accusations of sexual abuse and child “grooming” to attack Democrats and demonize the LGBTQ rights movement across the nation.

A review of the right’s hypocrisy on pedophilia and abuse found that conservative media personalities have repeatedly made comments promoting
the sexualization of children, while others have defended figures who
have been accused of abuse or pedophilia — and several reported abusers
have even worked in right-wing media themselves.

The right-wing fixation with pedophilia dates back decades and has been a central facet in dangerous right-wing conspiracy theories including
Pizzagate and QAnon, both of which have led to real-world violence.
Baseless pedophilia accusations have been used by the right to discredit
and attack the LGBTQ rights movement and any figure or symbol that they disagree with — from Elmo and public libraries to a plethora of
businesses and organizations.

The moral panic behind these accusations puts the real lives of LGBTQ
people at risk. These groundless allegations have led to neo-Nazi
encroachment at Pride events and calls for violence against pro-LGBTQ
people and organizations, including children’s hospitals.

As we enter Pride Month — a time of the year that has invigorated right-
wing extremists in their attacks against LGBTQ people — allies, political leaders, and businesses must not succumb to bad-faith actors making
groundless accusations against these underrepresented communities.

Here is a non-comprehensive breakdown of right-wing media figures and organizations who have either made comments that promote or mock the sexualization of minors, or supported or defended figures who have been
accused of abuse or pedophilia:
Jump to section

Promoting the sexualization of children and teens

In unearthed audio, Media Matters found that former Fox News host
Tucker Carlson made numerous perverted comments about underage girls on
the Bubba the Love Sponge Show between 2006-11. In appearances on the
shock jock’s radio program, Carlson minimized and defended statutory
rape, said he “would love” the idea of young girls experimenting with
their sexuality at boarding school, laughed about violence against women,
and described a Miss Teen USA contestant as “appealing” and said she
would be “probably a pretty good wife.”

Nazi-sympathizer Milo Yiannopoulos resigned from his position as an
editor at Breitbart in 2017 after making comments condoning pedophilia.

Former president and reality TV star Donald Trump reportedly walked
into a Miss Teen USA 1997 changing room where girls as young as 15 years
old were changing and allegedly said, “Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve seen it
all before.” (Trump has been accused of sexually assaulting dozens of
women dating back to the 1970s, and a federal jury recently found him
liable for sexually assaulting journalist E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s.)

Child pornography was reportedly found in Infowars head Alex Jones’ personal documents that were sent to lawyers during his Sandy Hook
defamation case in 2019.

Right-wing outlet The Daily Caller has repeatedly mocked survivors of childhood sexual abuse, including a whole category of tags on its website
for stories of teachers having sexual contact with their underage
students.

White nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes has promoted teen
pregnancies. Fuentes recently said that he wanted a “16-year-old wife,
probably when I turn 30,” claimed he was “not against grooming” children
as long as they are being “groomed” for marriage, and tweeted “17 years
old? What is even the big deal”.

Neo-Nazi blogger Andrew Anglin defended Fuentes’ comments, saying
it’s “normal” to want a 16-year-old bride and men should “shoot lower
than that. I don’t think you need to wait until the girl is 16.” Anglin
said that he supports “forced child marriage” but denied supporting
pedophilia, which he dismissed as a term “that gets thrown around at
people who talk about so-called underage girls.”

Right-wing influencer and “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander reportedly sent sexual text messages to teenage boys.

Right-wing misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate has teamed up to
promote an anime-obsessed content creator and misanthrope who promotes
the hyper-sexualization of underage girls. Tate and his brother have also bragged about having intercourse with teenagers. Tristan Tate is featured
in a video about how to “take a girl’s virginity.” The Tates are
currently under investigation in Romania for organized crime, rape, and
sex trafficking.

Radio host and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was caught on camera during the filming of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm attempting to
seduce an “underage” girl. Additionally, Giuliani defended a priest
accused of sexual abuse and a former Giuliani employee is reportedly
suing him for sexual harassment.

Former radio host and Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) was forced to resign
from Congress after it was revealed that he was sending sexual messages
to teenage male congressional pages.

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) pleaded guilty in
2015 to paying off victims to keep quiet about his history of sexual
abuse toward high school wrestlers that he coached decades earlier.

In 2009, Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Greta Van Susteren, and Bill
O’Reilly displayed footage of bikini-clad women on spring break while discussing crime in Mexico. Hannity repeated the spring break segments
again in 2014, 2017, and 2021.

In now-deleted tweets, right-wing influencer Ian Miles Cheong argued
that the age of consent should be lowered.
Working with or defending alleged pedophiles and abusers

Daily Wire host and anti-LGBTQ bigot Matt Walsh has attempted to
normalize pregnancy and marriage for teenage girls and defended former
Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was forced to resign after
decades of reported sexual abuse. Walsh has also defended other abusers
in the Catholic Church and minimized former reality TV star Josh Duggar’s multiple reports of child molestation (Duggar was later convicted and
sentenced to over 12 years for downloading child pornography).

Right-wing host and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee repeatedly
defended Duggar and argued that he should be forgiven for his crimes.

Right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA has employed or partnered with multiple sex offenders and drawn criticism from other conservatives for failing to handle allegations of sexual assault against underage students at its events. Kirk has also weaponized the sexual
assault of a minor to attack trans people.

Tucker Carlson has defended statutory rape and described reporting it
as “whiny,” claimed that underage boys being sexually harassed by a
female teacher is “the greatest thing that ever happened,” suggested that
it is “the dream of 15-year-old boys” to be sexually harassed by female teachers, and has shamed rape survivors and pushed general misogyny.
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03:25

Citation From the June 5, 2014, edition of Fox News' Outnumbered

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld recently applauded a 38-year-old high school
teacher who was charged with engaging in sexual intercourse with a 16-
year-old student. Gutfeld exclaimed: “16 years old — I would have died
for that!”
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03:06

Citation From the May 22, 2023, edition of Fox News' Gutfeld!

Former Trump White House chief strategist and podcaster Steve Bannon spearheaded former Alabama state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore’s
2017 special election campaign for Senate, even after reports that Moore groped, forcibly kissed, and made nonconsensual advances toward various
women. Moore was also accused of twice sexually assaulting a then-14-
year-old girl by taking her to his home in the woods and forcibly
touching her. Moore was 32-years-old at the time of the incident.

Multiple right-wing media figures and outlets defended Moore’s Senate
run, downplayed the report that he molested a child, and attacked his
accusers. Then-Infowars host David Knight even pushed for Moore to run
for Senate again in 2020.

Several right-wing figures defended Hastert prior to being “sentenced for
his part in an elaborate hush money scheme to cover up his years long molestation of teenage boys.”

In 2014, Fox News host Jesse Watters suggested that statutory rape of a 16-year-old boy by an older woman is not as bad if the rapist is
attractive.
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04:17

Citation From the June 11, 2014, edition of Fox News' Outnumbered

Frequent Fox News guest Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was reportedly aware of
sexual assaults occurring at Ohio State University while he was a
wrestling coach in the 1990s and “chose to turn a blind eye.” Then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), now a Fox Corp. board member, defended Jordan
and dismissed the need for the House Ethics Committee to investigate
members for “things that happened a couple of decades ago when they
weren’t in Congress.”

Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow attempted to turn Yiannopoulos into
a martyr following his comments defending the sexual assault of minors.

More examples of members of the far right falling into these categories
appear to pop up all the time.

The right-wing media’s hypocrisy on the topic is overwhelming, but it
will likely not stop them from continuing to make baseless accusations
about the LGBTQ community and putting real lives in danger.

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