Proud gay basher Tucker Carlson offered warm support for a university professor whose anti-transgender views are as vile as his own.
The ugly theme was set up early in the segment. Carlson reported that a Boise State University professor “has thousands of people calling for his firing because he has violated the sacred liberal catechism on transgenderism” in an article (posted on several right wing sites) which states that “transgender ideology” is destroying parental rights “by affirming the right of children to change their gender even if their parents object.” He added that Boise State says that the professor’s “rhetoric does not reflect the values of diversity, whatever that means.”
Political science professor Scott Yenor advanced the transphobic message: “Most people concede the point that transgender rights can undermine parental rights, so the general trope has been that I’ve said misogynist and transphobe, and homophobic things.” (No poll numbers cited to back up his “most people concede” claim.)
Carlson set up the validation: “But you were just noting that if you allow a child agency freedom to decide his or her gender, assuming you believe that’s even physically possible, but if you let kids decide then that undermines the right of parents to make decisions for the kid. So that’s like a statement of fact, isn’t it?” (Uh, no, it isn’t.)
Yenor added, “It seems to be a statement of fact…it’s difficult to imagine what the family could look like if there weren’t parental rghts and parental authority…”
“What kind of response did you get for saying something obvious?” Carlson asked.
Yenor, while proud of how his college administration allows academic freedom, criticized them for accusing him of hate speech, creating an unsafe environment, and being uncivil. He opined that Boise State represents the “conflict between a university that’s committed to social justice and a university that’s committed to rational inquiry.” That, he claimed, represents “the slow death of the modern university.”
“Or the quick death…” Carlson chimed in.
Yenor said that the incivility charge was because he “[doesn't] affirm everyone’s identity when I conduct my research on what the effects of identity politics are on the family.” He whined that the “new definition of civility” means “you have to affirm people in their identity.”
“Right, right, you can say I have a different view, but I don’t hate you for it,” Carlson said. He accused the school of having denounced Yenor “in a very modern way by saying that what you said does not reflect their values of diversity.” Affecting befuddlement, he asked the professor to explain what the phrase means.
Yenor defined diversity as “affirming everyone in their own identity as they understand it and the failure to do that makes you uncivil or maybe a person who perpetrates hate speech.” (Ya think!)
“They’re demanding uniformity,” Carlson accused. “The diversity officer is demanding conformity and no one sees that as Orwellian or totalitarian.”
FACT CHECK: No, actually, his statement, not cited by Carlson, is here.
Carlson and Yenor whined about liberal intolerance on campuses that promote social justice. Carlson further accused the diversity officer for trying “to stamp out intellectual diversity.”
Yenor is a political science professor and not a behavior specialist, sociologist or from any other field involved with the psychology of sexual identity issues. In addition to opposing transgender rights, which he blames on “radical feminists, Yenor asserts that same sex marriage is undermining the family. But rather than address how these views further validate societal transphobia that makes transgender lives difficult and dangerous, Carlson turned the discussion into a whine about persecuted college conservatives.
Check out the hate-speech enabling from the Friday, November 3, 2017 Tucker Carlson Tonight.
