Were Reid’s Posts ‘Homophobic’?
Joy Reid is apologizing for blog posts she wrote between 2007-2009, in which she addressed Charlie Crist as “Miss Charlie.” The right-leaning website Mediaite called the MSNBC political analyst and host of “AM Joy” out on Saturday for what it questionably claimed are “homophobic conspiracies and anti-gay jokes.”
On Sunday, Reid offered an apology to all who are “disappointed,” including her friends, viewers, and the now Democratic Congressman Crist, saying her “choice of words and tone have legitimately been criticized.” She posted this tweet before releasing her apology:
Mediaite’s Caleb Ecarma had reported that “Reid wrote numerous bigoted blog posts smearing, mocking, and attacking former Florida governor Charlie Crist,” basing that claim on unearthed archives of Reid’s Miami Herald blog. “These rants included calling Crist ‘Miss Charlie’ and sarcastically using the tags ‘gay politicians’ and ‘not gay politicians’ — despite the fact that the twice-married, heterosexual man has never come-out as gay.”
Rumors that Crist is gay have circulated for well over a decade. He chose to deny them in 2006. Republican turned independent turned Democrat, Crist was forced to apologize for his anti-gay record as the GOP governor of Florida when he unsuccessfully ran to retake his old office as a Democrat.
Reid, who is the co-author of the upcoming We Are the Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama, had claimed that Crist married a woman so he could be chosen as John McCain’s 2008 vice presidential running mate, which also was widely rumored at the time.Â
In fact, Reid’s remarks, ill-chosen as they may be, appear to be not attacking gay people or the LGBT community so much as attacking an anti-gay politician she – and many others – have long believed is gay. Many in the LGBT community for decades have supported attacking politicians believed to be gay when they hold anti-LGBT views or execute an anti-LGBT agenda.
“My critique of anti-LGBT positions he once held but has since abandoned was legitimate in my view,” Reid says of her attacks on Crist. “My means of critiquing were not.”
“Let me be clear: at no time have I intentionally sought to demean or harm the LGBT community, which includes people whom I deeply love,” she adds. “My goal, in my ham-handed way, was to call out potential hypocrisy.”
Over at LGBTQ Nation Alex Bollinger writes, “accusing Reid of being homophobic just because she thought Crist was gay – or even because she criticized him for being a closeted gay Republican or the GOP for wanting a heterosexual VP pick – is overwrought. Those rumors were rampant because a lot of people who knew Crist were contributing to them.”
Bollinger adds, “it’s not like Reid said that Crist was going to burn in hell. If anything, her overall position is that the GOP is wrong for being homophobic.”
Those who know Reid are also defending her.
“I’ve had the pleasure to call Joy a friend for a little over 10 years,” LGBTQ representative for the Broward Democratic Party Michael Emanuel Rajner told NCRM via email. “We met when she co-hosted a radio show in South Florida and reported how Fort Lauderdale’s then mayor was attacking the LGBT community.”
“While Joy could have expressed herself differently, it was a tough time for Florida’s LGBT community as we battled against a constitutional ban against marriage. Joy understood and supported us in our struggle and over the years has reached out to learn from her friends and colleagues in the LGBT community,” Rajner adds. “Joy is among one of my sheros with the courage to speak up and challenge authority and injustice.”
Mediaite author Caleb Ecarma, who authored the piece highlighting Reid’s remarks about Crist, has a history of attacking the MSNBC host via Twitter. He has called Reid a “bad person,” claimed she has never read the Bible, and asserted that “she immediately resorts to calling [leftists] sexist or racist.”
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