Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh
has denied he ever likened the growing “acceptance of pedophilia”
to gay marriage.
On his Monday show, Limbaugh said that
there is a movement to “normalize pedophilia” and that his
audience should not dismiss the trend like it did marriage equality.
“There is a movement on to normalize
pedophilia, and I guarantee you your reaction to that is probably
much the same as your reaction when you first heard about gay
marriage,” Limbaugh told his radio listeners. “What has happened
to gay marriage? It's become normal – and in fact, with certain
people in certain demographics it's the most important issue in terms
of who they vote for.”
“So don't pooh-pooh. There's a
movement to normalize pedophilia. Don't pooh-pooh it. The people
behind it are serious, and you know the Left as well as I do. They
glom onto something and they don't let go.”
Limbaugh referred to a Guardian
article in which the author wrote: “There is, astonishingly, not
even a full academic consensus on whether consensual paedophilic
relations necessarily cause harm.”
“They made the case that kids enjoy
it, adults enjoy it; what's wrong with a little love?”
“I just want to remind you, now, when
you first heard about gay marriage – and I don't mean to pick on
gays. It's not what I'm saying. It's just something that was such a
tremendous departure from accepted norms of the day. When you first
heard about gay marriage, you pooh-poohed it.”
On Tuesday, Limbaugh complained that he
was being unfairly attacked by his critics, saying he was merely
quoting “from a liberal newspaper in the UK, the Guardian.
That's all I did.”
EqualityMatters.org's Justin Berrier
called Limbaugh's denial “dishonest.”
“Limbaugh continued to justify his
comments by claiming he only used gay marriage as an example of a
changing societal norm in order to predict the reaction to the story
among his listeners,” Berrier
wrote. “But his choice of marriage equality as a comparable
issue plays into the persistent attempt to link homosexuality to
pedophilia, especially among members of the right-wing media.”