Advertisers drop Fox’s anti-LGBT Tucker Carlson over immigrant remarks
LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 21: Tucker Carlson speaks onstage during Politicon 2018 at Los Angeles Convention Center on October 21, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images for Politicon )
LGBT+ media organisation GLAAD has highlighted Tucker Carlson’s anti-LGBT+ record, after some 20 advertisers dropped his show on Fox News over derogatory comments he made about immigrants.
Carlson faced widespread criticism after he said on his talk show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, earlier this month that mass immigration “makes our country poorer, and dirtier, and more divided.”
The host added: “Immigration is an act of atonement. Previous leaders of our country committed sins. We must pay for those sins by welcoming an endless chain of migrant caravans.”
Tucker Carlson: Immigrants made US “dirtier”
Responding to his comments, at least 20 companies—including Land Rover, IHOP, and Just For Men—reportedly announced they would pull their adverts from the show.
GLAAD president Sarah Kate Ellis condemned Carlson’s remarks as “ugly, inaccurate, and un-American.”
“Immigration is an act of atonement. Previous leaders of our country committed sins. We must pay for those sins by welcoming an endless chain of migrant caravans.”
—Tucker Carlson
Ellis added: “Current and future advertisers must also remember Carlson’s pattern of peddling misinformation about and frequent attacks on other marginalised communities, including LGBTQ Americans.
“Fox News should take action and other advertisers should stand with marginalized communities by ending support of this derogatory programming.”
Tucker Carlson speaks onstage at IGNITION: Future of Media at Time Warner Center on November 29, 2017 in New York City. (Roy Rochlin/Getty)
GLAAD condemns Tucker Carlson for anti-immigrant comments
GLAAD also highlighted Carlson’s anti-LGBT+ statements over the years.
In 2017, Carlson boasted about beating up a gay man after he caught him having sex in a public toilet.
He said: “I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the you-know and grabbed him and hit him against the stall with his head, actually. And then the cops came and arrested him.”
In 2014, Carlson compared a bakery being made to produce a wedding cake for a gay couple to “fascism.”
“If I don’t want to bake you a cake for your gay wedding, that’s okay too… That’s called tolerance,” he said at the time.
“But when you try and force me to bake a cake for your gay wedding and threaten me with prison if I don’t, that’s called fascism.”
In 2006, Carlson discussed his anti-trans views on his show.
“If a person voluntarily undergoes castration, that is totally different,” he said.
“That is an act of a crazy person. That’s like setting your hair on fire or blinding yourself.
“You are unstable if you voluntarily castrate yourself simply because you feel uncomfortable in your own sex and I don’t want a person that unstable teaching my kids.”
He later said: “Just because you’re castrated and have a fake set of boobs does not make you a woman.
“It makes you a castrated man with a fake set of boobs. I don’t know why they’re sending him to women’s prison, but I guess that’s the rule.”
