Fox News host Tucker Carlson is seething after Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s apology for referring to sexuality as “sexual preference”.
At her Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday (13 October), conservative Supreme Court nominee insisted she has never discriminated against LGBT+ people based on “sexual preference” after being challenged over her ties to anti-LGBT+ hate groups.
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett apologised for ‘causing offence’.
The choice of phrase was called out by Hawaii Democratic senator Mazie Hirono, who responded: “Let me make clear, ‘sexual preference’ is an offensive and outdated term. It is used by anti-LGBT+ activists to suggest that sexual orientation is a choice. It is not. Sexual orientation is a key part of a person’s identity.”
After the rebuke, Coney Barrett replied: “I certainly didn’t mean and would never mean to use a term that would cause any offence in the LGBT+ community. So if I did, I greatly apologise for that.”
The moment was enough to set off Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who took to his show on Tuesday to vent about the exchange, which he said “sums up” the hearing as Coney Barrett “appears virtually certain to get the job and replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the court”.
Tucker Carlson decided to rage about trans people.
Playing the clip, Carlson raged: “So follow the ‘reasoning’, if you will… according to Mazie Hirono, you can choose your gender at will, because there’s an infinite number of genders to choose from, but you have absolutely no say in who you find attractive, and suggesting otherwise it’s just offensive.
“Sexual preferences are fixed in stone, bigot, and by the way put on your mask! This message has been brought to you by the party of science.”
In a bizarre non-sequitur, Carlson brought up ex-presidential hopeful and former anti-LGBT+ hate group activist Tulsi Gabbard, continuing: “By the way, why does Mazie Hirono represent Hawaii? In a fair world, why wouldn’t Tulsi Gabbard be the monarch of that state?”
Being transgender is also not a “preference”, though we suspect that point may be lost on Tucker Carlson.
Carlson’s head writer Blake Neff resigned in July after it revealed he had posted bigoted messages, peppered with homophobic slurs, to a troll-infested internet forum.
The Fox News host later insisted that the racist and homophobic views of his head writer have “nothing to do” with his work on the show – which is one of the most openly anti-LGBT+ parts of Fox News.