GLAAD calls on TV host to apologise for anti-gay remarks

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The Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is calling on Tucker Carlson, NBC News and MSNBC to apologise for remarks made on Tuesday night that appear to condone violent assault.

On the Aug. 28 edition of “MSNBC Live with Dan Abrams,” MSNBC host Tucker Carlson referenced an incident from his past when he was the recipient of an unwanted advance from another man.

Carlson told program host (and MSNBC general manager) Dan Abrams and fellow MSNBC host Joe Scarborough that after being “bothered” by a man in a restroom in a Washington, D.C. mall, Carlson returned “with someone [he] knew and grabbed the guy… and hit him against the stall with his head, actually. And then the cops came and arrested him.”

Abrams and Scarborough are seen chuckling throughout Carlson’s telling of the story.

Earlier today, GLAAD called Abrams’ office to discuss NBC News and MSNBC’s response to Carlson’s behavior.

Abrams’ office responded with an e-mailed statement attributed to Carlson, which read:

“Let me be clear about an incident I referred to on MSNBC last night: In the mid-1980s, while I was a high school student, a man physically grabbed me in a men’s room in Washington, D.C . I yelled, pulled away from him and ran out of the room. Twenty-five minutes later, a friend of mine and I returned to the men’s room. The man was still there, presumably waiting to do to someone else what he had done to me. My friend and I seized the man and held him until a security guard arrived.

“Several bloggers have characterised this as a sort of gay bashing. That’s absurd, and an insult to anybody who has fought back against an unsolicited sexual attack. I wasn’t angry with the man because he was gay. I was angry because he assaulted me.”

“Carlson’s story was difficult to watch on two levels,” GLAAD Senior Director of Media Programs Rashad Robinson said in a release.

“To see someone brag on national television of returning, with an accomplice, to the scene of an unwanted advance to violently attack the person who made it is incredibly disturbing. But it was also hard to watch because of the sheer absurdity of most of what Carlson was saying.

“Whether Abrams and Scarborough were laughing with Carlson or laughing at him, the fact remains that MSNBC and NBC News have some explaining to do about their standards and practices,” Robinson added.

“They need to explain whether bragging about physically assaulting a man in response to an unwanted advance is appropriate on-air behavior for one of their employees, and whether laughter by two others is an appropriate on-air response.”

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