What The Criticisms Of NYT Columnist Ross Douthat For Speaking To An Anti-Gay Group Are Missing
The New York Times’ conservative columnist, Ross Douthat, spoke last week at a fundraiser for one of America’s most anti-gay groups. Many in the LGBT community are outraged — here’s what they’re missing.
Ross Douthat is the New York Times’ only conservative opinion writer. The Times always has one. His predecessor was the horrific neocon war hawk William Kristol.
Douthat is young (34), smart, and far more religious than the average American.Â
And I can’t stand his work.
This week, some members of the LGBT blogosphere, from Dan Savage to Media Matters to Joe.My.God. to Towleroad, and others, went on the warpath, attacking Douthat for speaking at a fundraiser for the Alliance Defending Freedom. If you’re unsure exactly of what the ADF is, or their embarrassing portfolio of anti-gay legal work, read my recent piece, “Almost Everything You’ve Been Told About The Idaho Wedding Chapel Story Is A Lie.”
Here’s a screenshot of a recent ADF Facebook post that’s clearly not telling the truth:
Bottom line, the ADF is the law firm currently pushing the lie about the “Hitching Post” ministers being “threatened” with jail, etc. They also unintentionally brought same-sex marriage to California and Virginia, having lost those cases. They support putting LGBT people in prison, have ties to international anti-gay groups and actions, and are pursuing a Biblical take on the Constitution.Â
Evil, some might say, is an appropriate word for their work.
Ross Douthat claims he was unaware the event he attended was a fundraiser.
Big mistake.
He apologized, as Media Matters reports today:
“I was not aware in advance that this event was a fundraiser and had I known, I would not have agreed to participate,” he said in a statement issued to Media Matters through the Times Wednesday. “I was invited by an events organizing group, not by ADF directly. I understood this to be a public conversation about religious liberty. This is my fault for not doing my due diligence, and I will be declining the honorarium.”
Douthat is getting heat now for suggesting if it weren’t a fundraiser, he would have attended, revealing an appalling lack of investigation into the ADF — still — and an appalling lack of understanding of why so many are so upset.
Meanwhile, what everyone should be attacking Douthat for, actually, is not just that he showed up,  allowing his name to give creedence to the event, and thus, padding the ADF’s coffers, but that he didn’t chastise the ADF, its leaders, and its audience for being so off-the-wall filled with anti-gay hate once he got there.
Douthat had the opportunity to express just how offensive, dangerous, and anti-Christian the ADF actually is, but he didn’t.
“Hi, I’m Ross Douthat. Thanks for inviting me. I want you to know that I’m a devout Roman Catholic, a successful New York Times opinion writer, and I think what you’re doing, what your mission is, and how you treat God’s children who happen to be LGBT, is vile, disgusting, inhuman, and against God’s message of love. Shame on you all. No one respects you, you’re a laughing stock, you’ve lost nearly every important culture war case you’ve fought, and your ideas are dangerous to the younger generation — including my family.”
That’s not what Douthat told the audience at the ADF, but he should have.
Dan Savage exploded today, writing, “Douthat isn’t apologizing for crawling into bed with the ADF, an organization that wants to send Douthat’s colleagues Frank Bruni (gay), Josh Barro (gay), Charles Blow (bi), and Jennifer Boylan (a trans woman married to another woman) to prison. He’s not apologizing for speaking before the ADF. He’s only apologizing for appearing at a fundraiser for the ADF.”
“So,” Savage continues, “it’s fine for writers at the NYT to speak before hate groups—rabidly anti-gay orgs like the ADF, anti-Semitic groups, the reconstituted KKK, White Citizen Councils—so long as the event isn’t a fundraiser? So… it would’ve been fine for Douthat to have a ‘conversation’ with the organization that wants to send Frank Bruni and Josh Barro to prison but a line was crossed when Douthat helped raise money for the organization that wants to send Frank Bruni and Josh Barro to prison.”
He has several excellent points.
But no one is talking about what Douthat actually did say to the ADF.
Hugh Hewitt, a far-right wing pundit, introduced Douthat as the “special forces of conservative punditry,” someone who’s embedded “behind enemy lines” — meaning, the New York Times.
Douthat actually did a fairly decent job of presenting secular America’s position in opposing the radical religious right. Clearly, Hewitt and his audience were surprised, and Douthat likely didn’t make many friends, but he did plant important ideas in their minds, and there’s something to be said for that, too.
So, here’s the clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug1tz-ECKGA#t=11932
I agree, the LGBT community and our allies should be outraged at Douthat for “crawling into bed with the ADF,” but that’s not where our anger and upset should end.
Â
Image: YouTube
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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
