SALON

Why is reality so liberally biased against J.D. Hayworth?

Former congressman tries to defend his comments about man-horse marriage, non-existent quote

Topics: J.D. Hayworth, War Room, LGBT, MSNBC, Rachel Maddow,

Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., was on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show” Monday night. He talked with Maddow about a few different things — one of them, of course, his recent comments about same-sex marriage leading to marriage between people and horses, which he tried to defend. It didn’t go well.

As I noted in my post on the subject yesterday, Hayworth’s whole premise was faulty, as it started from a quote that just plain doesn’t exist. He said that when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, it defined marriage as simply “the establishment of intimacy.” In fact, that phrase never appears in the court’s decision.

Maddow, too, called Hayworth on this, and he didn’t have an answer. Instead, he went a sort of post-modern route:

MADDOW: [W]hat you said about the establishment of intimacy being the definition of marriage in Massachusetts, I don’t think it’s true, sir.

HAYWORTH: Well, that’s fine. You and I can have a disagreement about that.

MADDOW: Well, it either is true or it isn’t. It’s empirical.

HAYWORTH: OK. OK.

MADDOW: All right.

HAYWORTH: Well, I appreciate the fact that we have a disagreement on that.

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

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