Schoolyard bully turned Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly had one of his watchdogs sic openly gay Colorado House Speaker Mark Ferrandino over his refusal to “protect the kids” by passing Jessica’s Law, which imposes a minimum of 25 years for committing sexual assault on a minor before being eligible for parole.
Reporter Jesse Watters rushes up on Ferrandino — with an immediacy reserved for gays, liberals and other harbingers of doom — while walking his dog and barrages him with a series of questions and cases purportedly illustrating Colorado’s lax laws on child molesters.
Colorado is one of only five states which has not passed Jessica’s Law, named after 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford after she was sexually assaulted and buried alive in Florida in 2005.
O’Reilly claims that Ferrandino and the Democrats in Colorado are basically ruining the moral fabric of the state, noting that the Speaker is pro-gay marriage and pro-marijuana legalization; but what he fails to note is that Colorado already has very strict child molester laws.
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According to The Denver Post:
And in a rare moment of unity, the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council, Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Colorado Office of the Public Defender all agree Jessica’s Law isn’t necessary…Laurie Rose Kepros, the director of Sexual Offense Defense for the public defenders office, said Colorado’s complicated and nuanced sentencing laws “already go beyond what Jessica’s Law mandates.”
“Jessica’s Law is a 25-year sentence, and we have life sentences for all of the crimes covered under the bill,” she said.
Ferrandino, for his part, has allegedly received threatening emails due to O’Reilly’s continued demonizing of him — including one from a viewer who hoped his 14-year-old foster daughter gets raped.
Lovely.
But Ferrandino thinks Jessica’s Law has been overly politicized. “What shocks me is for the two years Republicans had the majority, they didn’t introduce this bill,” Ferrandino told The Post. “This is all about politics and not good policy.”
O’Reilly wouldn’t know “good policy” if it ran up on him in the street in the middle of a morning walk, but the fact that Ferrandino is a Democrat and a gay is “good” enough.
(h/t: ThinkProgress)
BJ McFrisky
Mr. (or is it Ms.?) Brathwaite’s categorization that Watters “rushes up on Ferrandino—with an immediacy reserved for gays, liberals and other harbingers of doom” is hilariously indicative of how he, Brathwaite, feels perpetually victimized. This had nothing to do with Ferrandino’s exuality, it was about a childsren’s law. That Queerty would turn this int an instance of perceived gay-bashing is so over-the-top that I have to question other articles I’ve read on this site about so-called bullying.
Cam
Interesting BJ. You ask “Or is is Ms.” as a pejorative. But then later in your post you call him “He” showing that you did know his sex. “Of course the name Lester at the bottom of the article is also a giveaway.”
Nice to see that you gripe about perceived gay bashing when you go after somebody you do not agree with by referring to him as a woman.
Thomathy
The impromptu interview was about a proposed law that doesn’t go as far as Colorado’s current law in the punishment of child sex abusers.
There are further issues with the law, even with Colorado’s current law, but suffice it to say that the interviewer and O’Reilly are factually mistaken about the need for Jessica’s law to be passed in Colorado. There is, in the style of this surprise interview and in the fact that the Speaker is gay, a clear spin on the issue wherein the character and sexual conduct of the Speaker are being implicitly questioned because he is gay.
O’Reilly has a history of conflating homosexuality with variously, paedophilia, hebephilia and, where illegal, ephebophilia. It is not a coincidence that an interview in relation to a law regarding child sexual abuse is forced upon a gay man who is Speaker of a House that hasn’t passed what, in other States, is probably a necessary step-up in prosecutorial law against child sex abusers. The implication of the Speaker as, at least, a sympathiser for child sex abusers is transparent.
LaTeesha
@BJ McFrisky: It’s too bad you didn’t read the entire article. You can read, right?
LaTeesha
Since O’Reilly seems to want a law passed that would carry a lighter sentence than the one already imposed by CO law, one must wonder, “Why?”
Humphries
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2eo
It’s kind of sad that Avenger and BJ and their multiple accounts are easily intellectually outclassed by the bot trolling from a Russian fraud server.
viveutvivas
To the article writer. I would suggest you look up the definition of “sic”, since you are using it wrong.
Thomathy
viveutvivas, I think the writer meant ‘sick’. It’s a tpyo, praise be to the goddess, and they’re far too common in the articles here. Well, the writer could actually be stupid, but I’m generous.
Dresden
@Thomathy: You’re being far too generous; viveutvivas is correct… it was definitely a misuse of the word. The only way for sic to have been used and make any sense is if the author had said that O’Riley had sicked his watchdog on the Speaker. The watchdog himself cannot sic the Speaker.
MuscleModelBlog.com
“‘What shocks me is for the two years Republicans had the majority, they didn’t introduce this bill,’ Ferrandino told The Post. ‘This is all about politics and not good policy.'”
This is definitely a possibility. If they make the Democrats look like “the bad guy” in this, it will not help the Democrats come the next elections.
I must say that I don’t know much about / have not watched much of Bill O’Reilly, so I can’t really comment on him too much.
brent
Whatever you think of O’Reilly, he has been going after politicans for some time, because they don’t support Jessica’s law. He didn’t treat this guy any differently. Queerty didn’t mention the real reason the democrats don’t support Jessica’s law, it is because they are afraid of the ACLU. It’s ironic that at the same time colorado democrats talk tough on the NRA, they give into the ACLU.
tookietookie
Think of the childsren’s [sic]!
Dresden
@tookietookie: You messed up… the correct spelling is chirrens.
LaTeesha
@brent: Apparently, you have trouble distinguishing reality from fiction. It has been repeatedly explained why this law hasn’t advanced in CO. Why do you support weakened penalties for child molesters?
Dakotahgeo
Is this the same, “You’re doing a heckava job, Brownie,” that GW Bunnypants so proudly assailed as his finest puppy dog guy? Yeah, we’re gonna listen to this blowhard REAL closely… riiiiight!!!
Fidelio
@Dresden: I believe the author may have used “sic” correctly. Sic (or sick) is an intransitive verb that means attack, or harass. By definition, a transitive verb needs an object, in this case, Mr. Ferrandino. Alternatively, you can say, “…O’Reilly had one of his watchdogs attack…Ferrandino.” I would just chalk this up to writing style, but not incorrect. Personally, I would have said, “…massive prick O’Reilly sent total asshole reporter to harass cutie Ferrandino.”
DarkZephyr
@BJ McFrisky: Do you ever say anything in favor of gay rights? I truly doubt that you do, because I firmly believe that you are a big fake.
brent
@LaTeesha: The explanation is that DA’s do not want it. I do not believe that, i think it is because the ACLU is opposed tp it.