On Wednesday’s “The O’Reilly Factor” on the Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network anchor John Stossel weighed in on the controversies tied the same-sex marriage issue and how proponents of same-sex marriage have commandeered the debate.
Transcript as follows:
O’REILLY: “Stossel Matters Segment” tonight. With us now here in New York, John Stossel from the Fox Business Network, you see his program every Friday night.
OK. I didn’t give you an introduction because I want to just tell this to you, the introduction, just face to face, not reading a stupid teleprompter, ok? It’s right there. All right.
Now, I believe that gay Americans deserve protections specifically written into the law because of the numbers. Number one, they are very small compared to the big population and children who are homosexual or effeminate if they are boys or different get brutalized. Teenagers brutalized.
Matthew Shepard, remember the case in Wyoming killed, nailed to a fence post — all right. Only because of their sexual orientation — no other reason.
So, when you have a situation like that, a situation where we have 325 million people in this country and even if 90 percent of them are good, decent folks, that leaves 32 million people running around that can hurt you. You have got to protect.
So gay Americans deserve carved out legal protections — you disagree?
JOHN STOSSEL, FBN HOST: Well, when you say carved out special protections for them.
O’REILLY: Yes.
STOSSEL: Not special — yes.
O’REILLY: But the crime is elevated if you attack someone on the basis —
STOSSEL: But it’s already a crime if you attack someone.
O’REILLY: I want it elevated.
STOSSEL: But we’ve already got all the — race, gender, religion, disability, age — all these specially protected groups. I am two of those. You better be nice to me.
O’REILLY: Well, I always am.
But I think you understand where I’m coming from here is that there is a risk in certain areas of this country.
STOSSEL: Of course. But this is the point.
O’REILLY: And maybe a local jurisdiction won’t investigate because they don’t — they succumb to the pressure. So the federal government has to get involved. It’s the same thing on the race issue.
So, I mean I’m going to demand and I think those protections are needed.
STOSSEL: Fine. No quarrel. Look, I’m for gay marriage, but I think this movement has moved from tolerance to totalitarianism — it’s the totalitarianism of the left.
O’REILLY: I have no — you are absolutely right on that.
STOSSEL: No baker should get to stop two people from getting married to anybody they want.
O’REILLY: They can’t stop it. A baker can’t stop it.
STOSSEL: But they shouldn’t be forced to bake the cake.
O’REILLY: I agree with you.
STOSSEL: I disagree with you and Marco Rubio. This is not about religious rights. It’s about individual freedom.
O’REILLY: All right. Well, you can carry that over.
STOSSEL: They don’t have to prove that it’s religious.
O’REILLY: No, but the baker — there has got to be a reason why. Look if a black couple comes in and the baker says I’m not going to bake the cake because you are black, that’s a crime.
STOSSEL: Given America’s history, blacks are a special case. But, your point was good about exclusivity. There are lots of places —
O’REILLY: There’s lots of places to go and if it is a religious thing.
STOSSEL: All of you, even those who think this is immoral, Hobby Lobby has to go to the Supreme Court to not pay for what it considers murder? That’s wrong.
O’REILLY: Well, the system actually worked there though.
STOSSEL: Barely. They had to spend a gazillion dollars to prove they were religious?
O’REILLY: Let’s get back to this totalitarianism, fascism that’s being imposed by the secular progressive fanatics. That’s got to be, as I told Mr. Rove, confronted. It has to be.
STOSSEL: We should have freedom of information and the way — I’m sorry freedom of association in America — and the way to fight bigotry. A bigot ought to be allowed to a bigot. The way to fight it is to not patronize that store. I won’t go to the baker —
O’REILLY: Market place can dictate but a bigot, all right. If you want to be a bigot, you have a right to be a bigot but you don’t have the right to hurt someone in the process.
STOSSEL: Right. But not selling them a cake isn’t the same thing.
O’REILLY: Not the same thing. But there has to be legal protections for homosexuals in this country. There has to be.
STOSSEL: We have those.
O’REILLY: All right. John Stossel, everybody.
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