A prominent gay rights group has rescinded an award from Joy Reid after a new round of “homophobic” blog posts allegedly written by the MSNBC host were unearthed.
Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) National was scheduled to present Ms. Reid with its Straight for Equality in Media award next month at the group’s 45th anniversary celebration in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Reid, who hosts the MSNBC program “AM Joy,” apologized in December after it was revealed that she had written dozens of posts making derogatory comments about the LGBT community on her now-defunct blog, The Reid Report. Among other things, Ms. Reid accused then-Florida Gov. Charlie Christ, whom she nicknamed “Miss Charlie,” of being a closeted gay man.
On Monday, Mediaite published another round of blog posts from The Reid Report allegedly showing Ms. Reid defending homophobia, making gay jokes and accusing public figures of being gay.
Ms. Reid denied writing the newly published posts, attributing their appearance on her blog to an “external party” who “manipulated” an Internet archive to make it look like she had written them.
After the new blog posts were discovered, PFLAG National President Jean Hodges said the group could no longer give the award to Ms. Reid.
“When we extended our invitation to Ms. Reid to honor her at our 45th anniversary celebration, we did so knowing about the blog posts from the late 2000s regarding Charlie Crist,” Ms. Hodges told Mediaite. “We appreciated how she stepped up, took ownership, apologized for them, and did better — this is the behavior and approach we ask of any ally.”
But “in light of new information,” Ms. Hodges continued, “and the ongoing investigation of that information,” PFLAG National “must at this time rescind our award to Ms. Reid.”
Articles from The Reid Report were unearthed using the Wayback Machine, an Internet archiving service that takes screenshots of popular websites to preserve their content.
In one of the newly discovered posts, the author wrote that “most straight people cringe at the sight of two men kissing.”
“Most straight people had a hard time being convinced to watch ’Broke Back Mountain,’ ” the blog post continued. “(I admit that I couldn’t go see the movie either, despite my sister’s ringing endorsement, because I didn’t want to watch the two male characters having sex.) Does that make me homophobic? Probably.”
Another post defended Marine Gen. Peter Pace after he condemned “homosexual acts” as “immoral.”
“Some people use the [word] ’immoral’ when they really mean ’distasteful’ — I think a lot of heterosexuals, especially men, find the idea of homosexual sex to be … well … gross, and they lump it in with immorality,” the author wrote in a 2007 post. “And then there are the concerns that adult gay men tend to be attracted to very young, post-pubescent types, bringing them ’into the lifestyle’ in a way that many people consider to be immoral.”
The blog posts included frequent speculation on the sexuality of public figures. A 2005 post called Anderson Cooper, who did not come out as gay until 2012, “the gayest thing on TV.” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow was also a recurring topic of conversation on the blog.
The author of the blogs also advocated against gay marriage, saying, “I’m not even in favor of gay marriage” and “I’m not a gay marriage proponent.”
In a statement, Ms. Reid said someone is trying “to taint my character with false information by distorting a blog that ended a decade ago.”
“Now that the site has been compromised I can state unequivocally that it does not represent the original entries,” she said. “I hope that whoever corrupted the site recognizes the pain they have caused, not just to me, but to my family and communities that I care deeply about: LGBTQ, immigrants, people of color and other marginalized groups.”
Chris Butler of the Wayback Machine said a review found “nothing to indicate tampering or hacking of the Wayback Machine versions” of Ms. Reid’s blog.
“This past December, Reid’s lawyers contacted us, asking to have archives of the blog (blog.reidreport.com) taken down, stating that ’fraudulent’ posts were ’inserted into legitimate content’ in our archives of the blog,” Mr. Butler wrote on Tuesday. “Her attorneys stated that they didn’t know if the alleged insertion happened on the original site or with our archives (the point at which the manipulation is to have occurred, according to Reid, is still unclear to us).”
• Bradford Richardson can be reached at brichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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