In response to an insensitive comment made during a broadcast on GB News, RuPaul’s Drag Race UK stars have backed calls for broadcast watchdog Ofcom to take action.
Josh Howie, a political pundit on the right-wing channel, faced criticism for a remark he made during Headliners, a show that examines the day’s headlines.
Howie brought up a story about Mariann Budde, an Episcopalian bishop, citing a statement from her church that supported her request that Donald Trump “show mercy” to LGBT individuals.
“I just want to say that that includes paedos,” Howie said after reading the quotation, which supported the “full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons.”
The comment was deemed “disgusting” by viewers.
The UK-based group Good Law Project, which called the remark and the TV channel “outrageous and dangerous,” received almost 71,000 complaints as part of their campaign to force Ofcom to take action.
The complaints were delivered to Ofcom’s London offices by members of the non-profit political group on Monday, February 17. Emails have also been used to share them.
Divina de Campo and Crystal, stars of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, have supported the effort, calling GB News and its “normalization of hate” a “stain on the UK.”
“It’s not only disgusting, but it’s statistically incorrect to associate loving, consensual relationships with abusers,” stated De Campo. Compared to LGBTQ+ people, straight men are far more prone to mistreat others.
The remarks, according to Crystal, amounted to “disgusting hate speech,” which she worries has become commonplace.
The [previous] couple of years have seen an emboldening of bigots who confuse paedophilia with LGBTQ+ identities, as I know from personal experience,” she added. They feel comfortable using this hatred in public, but we must remind them that it is not only harmful but also libelous.
“GB News broadcast one of the most outrageous and dangerous lies that have surrounded LGBTQ+ people for decades and has since double down,” stated Jolyon Maugham, a barrister who founded Good Law Project. This is a test of Ofcom’s commitment to combating hate speech.All of this leaves businesses like Sky Media that have advertising agreements with GB News with a decision to make. Are the LGBTQ+ communities valued by them?
Howie apologized to “LGB people,” claiming he wasn’t referring to them, but he acknowledged that the clip had been taken out of context.
It’s not that I said LGBT people are pedophiles. To everyone who believed that I was saying that, I sincerely apologize.
On a recent edition of Headliners, @JoshxHowie discusses the online criticism he received for remarks he made about LGBTQ+ people.
The truth is that there are pedophiles in every single group, ethnicity, and profession, and they must be exposed in every single one of those settings. However, the separation of the LGB from the Q+ is what I am referring to here.
He went on to say that the “TQ+” component of the LGBTQ+ acronym—which stands for trans, non-binary, queer, and more—was “not fit for purpose.” “I understand that some people mistook my actions for homophobia when, in reality, I was acting in a completely different manner. The LGB and the Q+ must be kept apart.
