On the day that North Carolina and the Justice Department filed dueling lawsuits over the state’s “bathroom law,” Fox trotted out bigot Pat Buchanan to attack the federal government.
Host Neil Cavuto played it pretty straight in his introduction. He noted that the state’s action of forcing people to use a bathroom based on biology and not of their choosing was “seen as an overreach on the part of the state” and “obviously brought a great deal of contempt. Canceled were a number of conventions, businesses that plan gatherings in the state.”
Cavuto also pointed out that the whole dispute has turned into something “much bigger than anyone thought.”
Cavuto suggested that he’d prefer to see the matter resolved “in a quiet way that wouldn’t involve any laws whatsoever.” But the choice of anti-LGBT and all-around bigot Buchanan as a guest all but guaranteed adding fuel to the fire. Sure enough, he didn’t disappoint.
PAT BUCHANAN: I think the Department of Justice, and I hope the Obama administration gets stuffed on this one. Look, the idea that grown men have a right to use girls’ locker rooms and girls’ bathrooms and all the rest of it, it seems to me is ridiculous. There is no need, there is no great crisis here in America. And to compare this with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, I go back to those days and the Voting Rights Act and Selma in ‘65 is ridiculous. I mean, there is going—something is going to happen out of this, Neil. Some character is going to go into some girl’s room or ladies room and some terrible incident is going to occur, and there is going to be a terrible backlash. This country has existed for, what, 200 and some odd years and we haven’t had any problem with this. Why can’t the minority that is griping about it simply deal with it?
Cavuto got with the program.
CAVUTO: You know what was interesting, to liken this and the Jim Crow laws and what have you, I mean, to put that community in with those who suffered to racism—
BUCHANAN: Well that is really an outrage.
[…]
CAVUTO: Yeah, I think someone had said that even if there was no danger within the transgender community, for something like this that it might spur the very type of activity…
BUCHANAN: Sure, what do you think when some women and girls are in a bathroom somewhere, you know, or in a restaurant or something, some character walks in. I mean, they’re creating a problem that did not exist.
However, Cavuto did suggest that North Carolina “started it” by instituting a law “when common sense could have probably handled it.”
Later, Buchanan ridiculously tried to fashion himself as a civil rights maven, which Cavuto did not challenge.
BUCHANAN: I must say, this is almost a parody to listen to this whole thing described as the great battle for civil rights. I saw—I was at the March on Washington in ‘63. You know, I was in any number of these things, these collisions, it was a great occasion and great movement and to compare that is to compare the sublime to the ridiculous.
Buchanan went on to liken the situation to Martin Luther King Day.
BUCHANAN: Look, let’s take the Martin Luther King Day, 48 states wanted it, Arizona voted no and New Hampshire voted no. Let ‘em vote no. But instead we’re going to take away the Super Bowl, and they use all this force to come down when I think the best thing to do is let the people decide. Let the community decide. It’s called the principle of subsidiarity.
But, as The Washington Post reported, the state law was enacted specifically to overrule the community of Charlotte, which had passed “a city ordinance that expanded civil rights protections for people based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” So if Buchanan really thought “the people” should decide, then the law should never have been passed in the first place.
Furthermore, discrimination against LGBT people is real. A former DOJ official said last night, “Transgender people are protected against discrimination ... The law is pretty clear.”
Watch those details get left out of the May 9 discussion on Fox News’ Your World, below, via Media Matters.
Which led to Molly Ivins memorable line, "Pat Buchanan’s speech sounded better in it’s original German. "