Just when you thought Americans had suffered enough after last night’s seven-hour CNN climate change town hall, there’s more.
At the end of Wednesday night’s event, CNN anchor Don Lemon announced that his network, in partnership with the left-wing activist organization Human Rights Campaign, will host an Oct. 10 town hall exclusively focused on gay, lesbian, and transgender issues, featuring all qualifying Democratic presidential candidates. Lemon said the event will focus on “issues important to LGBTQ people,” and HRC president Alphonso David said, “This town hall comes at a critical time in our fight to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people in this nation.”
Thought you were done with this seven-hour nonsense that @CNN forced on us tonight with the #ClimateTownHall? GET THIS — Don Lemon announced at the very end that @CNN will be doing this AGAIN next month on LGBTQ issues. So buckle up for what will probably be another SEVEN hours! pic.twitter.com/1ItLGZQP1O
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 5, 2019
This announcement made me roll my eyes, and frankly, left me a bit nauseous. The last thing we need is a 7-hour pander-fest sponsored by a partisan group, chock full of virtue-signaling and utterly devoid of any meaningful debate.
It’s not as if any of the major Democratic candidates disagree on any of the related issues. Whether it’s gay marriage, transgender inclusion in the military, or support for the left-wing Equality Act, they’re all pretty much on the same page. This makes this town hall much more pointless than the climate town hall, which, as insufferable as it may have been, at least focused on an issue where the Democratic Party is in the midst of an earnest debate about how far they ought to go.
Because all of the candidates agree on all of the relevant issues, this town hall will inevitably turn into a sickening exercise in woke one-upsmanship, with candidates embracing Kirsten Gillibrand-esque cringiness to try to signal that they are the true supporter of gay and transgender rights.
Lol here’s Kirsten Gillibrand yelling “Gay Rights!” pic.twitter.com/oF8A4LBMAx
— Bobby Caruso (@BobbysByline) June 8, 2019
Oh, and there’s no doubt it’ll turn into a fact-free Trump-bashing fest too, with no one on stage there to point out when Democrats fall back on lies or misleading talking points to exaggerate the (mostly false) narrative that the Trump administration is virulently anti-gay.
And the very premise of this debate, Lemon’s assertion that it will “focus on issues important to LGBTQ people,” is condescending and reductive. It implies that gay and transgender people have identical priorities, or that all gay and all transgender people think alike, when in reality they have a wide variety of political beliefs and priorities. Gay people are not single-issue voters, and frankly, many of us couldn’t be less interested in CNN’s pandering.
We have marriage equality, openly gay military service, virtually every big business is rabidly pro-LGBT, popular culture is 100% pro-LGBT, so unless this will be about Islam’s treatment of LGBT people globally – this will be a very short townhall. https://t.co/DldKW3P2Ft
— Chris Barron (@ChrisRBarron) September 5, 2019
If CNN was interested in a meaningful discussion on these issues, they’d host an event featuring Republicans and Democrats, or left-wing HRC activists and members of conservative groups. Apparently, ratings and a partisan dunk-fest are more important to the network than hosting an actually interesting debate.
Not that this is surprising, given HRC’s involvement. The so-called LGBT rights organization is actually a partisan smear shop. They absurdly smear Republican elected officials as “anti-LGBT” for their completely unrelated positions on Obamacare, immigration, and Planned Parenthood.
This shameful organization isn’t worthy of CNN’s partnership. And the planned LGBT town hall clearly isn’t worth our viewership, either.
