Rosie O'Donnell on Tuesday said the
anti-gay rhetoric of GOP presidential candidates is “shocking in
2012.”
O'Donnell, the host of cabler OWN's The
Rosie Show, made her remarks during an appearance on CNN's Piers
Morgan Tonight.
“We're a backward nation in many
ways,” O'Donnell told host Piers Morgan. “That's one of the ways
most evident nowadays especially with the election – to think that
you can turn on the presidential debate and you can have people
actually say that they think being gay is wrong is shocking in 2012.
It's shocking to me.”
O'Donnell added that she was
particularly offended by Rick Perry's controversial ad titled Strong,
in which Perry says there is something wrong with America when gay
troops can serve openly in the military but children cannot openly
celebrate Christmas.
The ad, O'Donnell said, was released
about the same time she had announced her engagement
to girlfriend Michelle Rounds.
“I remember being home that weekend
and having just announced that we were engaged and being around
Chicago and getting this overwhelming support from everyone and then
watching this ad of this man who basically said, 'Well, I just don't
believe that you people have the same rights as other people in this
country.' That's not what America was founded on. It was hurtful
and shocking. In the wake of all these teen suicides and gay
bullying, I don't understand why politicians or anybody thinks they
can get away with that.” (Watch the exchange at Mediaite.com.)