HRC Calls for MSNBC to Sanction Pat Buchanan

HRC.org

Longtime paid political analyst defends his homophobic stance

WASHINGTON– The Human Rights Campaign – the nation’s largest civil rights organization working for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality – joins Media Matters’ call on MSNBC and its parent company, NBCUniversal, to sanction contributor Pat Buchanan, who has a long history of making public anti-gay statements.  Most recently, Buchanan told NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show that homosexuality is “unnatural.” 

“I believe that homosexuality is -- that it is unnatural activity. Unnatural and immoral,” Buchanan told host Diane Rehm on October 25.  “I would say that kind of conduct should be discouraged in a good society, in a healthy society.”

Every credible major medical and mental health organization in the United States has stated that homosexuality is normal, and attempts to alter or oppress a person’s sexual orientation can be dangerous and damaging. 

“While Pat Buchanan is free to hold and express his views, the fact that MSNBC has given him a public platform to spew this sort of dangerous rhetoric is unacceptable, “said HRC President Joe Solmonese.  “MSNBC should sanction Mr. Buchanan, as his extremist ideas are incredibly harmful to millions of LGBT people around the world.” 

During his tenure as a political commentator for MSNBC, Buchanan has made a number of bigoted, racist, and anti-Semitic comments for which he has been reprimanded.