CNN's Don Lemon, a man who's not exactly known for his eloquence or intelligence, displayed more than his fair share of both in response to his network's homophobic coverage of Wednesday's shooting of two journalists in Virginia.
Numerous CNN anchors have noted that Vester Flanagan II, who was openly gay, also owned Internet domain names that could be used to host pornographic sites in 2007 and 2008. No argument was made for how his ownership of those domains was related to his decision to shoot Alison Parker, Adam Ward, and later himself -- the facts were merely left hanging out there for conservatives to start free-associating with.
"The gay porn site thing, to me, I don't really see the relevance of it," Lemon said. "If it's not illegal, then what's wrong with him owning gay porn sites or straight porn sites or as a journalist forming a media company like Dan Abrams did? I don't see anything wrong with it. He's an entrepreneur, he's an American -- as long as it's two consenting adults, I don't see what difference it makes."
"I don't want to gay-shame him," he continued. "There's nothing wrong with being gay. I'm sure he probably faced some discrimination, as we all do, and that's horrible. But it still does not condone his actions two days ago."
Wolf Blitzer noted that Abrams didn't own a pornographic site, but Lemon was having none it. "There's no difference," he said. "They're both legal. If Dan Abrams or anybody else wanted to start a gay porn website, as long as they're abiding by the law, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. You may look down upon it and judge it. But there's nothing illegal about it. I don't see why it's relevant in this particular case."
Watch the entire exchange via Media Matters below.
Shares