The Rise And Fall And Rise Of Ann Coulter And The Business Of Anti-Gay Hate Speech In America (Part One)
Ann Coulter has made it her business to ridicule gays. By ridiculing straights:Â
Bill Clinton “show[s] some level of latent homosexuality”, Al Gore is a “total fag”, and “I’d say that’s about even money” on Hillary Clinton “[c]oming out of the closet” in 2008.
“…but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I’m – so, kind of at an impasse, can’t really talk about [John] Edwards…”
It turns out, calling someone a “faggot”, or “faggy”, or even “gay” even if they’re not, can be a hate crime. Even if they’re only kidding. But it turns out you can get away with it. Because the Right has made a business out of hate speech. Yes, that’s right, hate speech.Â
Hate speech is defined as “Bigoted speech attacking or disparaging a social or ethnic group or a member of such a group.”
And it turns out it sells books. And ads on blogs, television and radio shows. And ads in newspapers. And conservatives have a far greater reach, and are far more likely to use it to demonize gays than liberals. Here are a few quotes from conservative radio host Michael Savage:
“I don’t like a woman married to a woman. It makes me want to puke. … I want to vomit when I hear it. I think it’s child abuse.”
“…the family unit is…the strongest bond on Earth, which is why homosexual marriage is such a threat to civilization itself.”
“…you may say, ‘Why should we care about homosexuals trying to destroy families through the mock marriage that they perform in order to mock God, the church, the family, children, the fetus, the DNA of the human species? Why should we care about it while we have a financial meltdown?’ Because the spiritual side of the downturn on Wall Street is directly related to the moral downturn in the United States of America.”Â
Does that match the definition of “hate speech”? Most certainly. And yet, the Ann Coulters, Michael Savages, and Michelle Malkins of the world are allowed, even encouraged, to continue their venomous attacks on the millions of gays in America. They are rewarded for their hate and hostility. It has become a circus, entertainment, a game, to drive ratings and sell books, advertisements, and speaking engagements. And it seems the harder we fight against the business of homophobia, the more the hate-mongers win.
Perhaps one of the most vicious, homophobic attackers is Michelle Malkin. Although less well-known than Coulter, she has crystalized her brand of venomous hatred into a position at FOX News as a commentator, and as a syndicated columnist and blogger. Malkin seems strangely obsessed with homosexuals. I wrote last month an open letter to Malkin, wondering why, “the word “homosexual†appears in 45 of your blog posts, and … the word “gay†appears in well over 150 of your blog posts.”Â
After California’s anti-gay marriage ballot initiative, Proposition 8, passed, Malkin went into full force against the millions of angry gay marriage supporters across the country, calling them “tolerance bullies“, characterizing their anger as “insane rage“, and creating a homophobic panic which might lead any reader to think large numbers of gays, what she called the “mob response to the passage of Proposition 8“, were daily attacking every church and business or individual who supported Prop 8. (For the record, there were not.)
Which brings us back to Ann Coulter. Speaking about the 2006 California gay marriage debate, Coulter said,
“…these black ministers would come on TV and say things no white conservative would say. ‘Sodomy? You’re going to burn in hell for that!’ And I realized to my delight that if we can get blacks to be conservatives, we have an entire race of Ann Coulters. “
Early in the spring of 2007, during the Democratic presidential nominee campaign, Coulter called John Edwards a “faggot”. She received harsh rebuke, primarily from the Left, for it. And she lost advertisers. Lots of them. Via Towleroad:
Net Bank, Verizon, Washington Mutual, AT&T/Cingular, Dollar Rent-A-Car, SmileTrain.org, University of Phoenix, Sallie Mae, LasikPlus, Power Chord Academy, Gulf Shores.com/Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau, Ulta.com, and Yellow Pages.com have all abandoned the right-wing pundit’s site…
The Human Rights Campaign mounted an effective effort to impact her reach by urging the public to “Help put an end to the politics of hate. Tell the Universal Press Syndicate to stop carrying Ann Coulter’s column!” And it worked. At least eleven newspapers did drop Coulter’s column. But it also drummed up attention. And attention is what feeds the bank accounts of the homophobic hate-mongering crowd.
Ann Coulter is back on top. After losing ground, advertisers, and reach, Coulter has risen to new heights of popularity. The media have catered to her tactics and shenanigans and desperate pleas for attention. All of which have helped her publish books. Seven books, actually. Her current publisher, Random House’s Crown Forum, “is the latest addition to our growing family of targeted imprints. Serving a conservative readership, it includes books from Ann Coulter, Michael Medved, Daniel J. Flynn, Kenneth Timmerman, and others.“ Her latest bestselling book, “Guilty”, has been characterized by Media Matters as “filled with falsehoods“. But it is those falsehoods, like characterizing Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and John Edwards all as gay that sell her books, and the books, TV appearances, radio talk shows, and public speaking engagements of the conservative Right that keep these hate mongers in business. And we have to stop them.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
