Is ousted Miami news anchor Charles Perez, who claims he was fired for being gay, just another example of why trying to shatter the glass closet is bad for your career? Or was he just bad at his job and using his sexuality as an excuse for a payday?
Perez had been holding down the anchor chair for Miami’s ABC affiliate WPLG, owned by Washington Post.Newsweek. But sometime around March he began getting reprimanded for not acting anchor-y; his bosses told him his lady co-anchors looked more like “girlfriends” (or “girl-friends”?) than colleagues. “Butch it up” was the message Perez heard, which led to him filing a discrimination claim. And that, if his story is to be believed, is what just got him fired. (There was also the email to his therapist about his “gender identity issues” that Perez thinks his now-ex leaked to his bosses, adding a whole new chapter of intrigue to the plot.)
Now, like any good media drama, Perez is telling his side of things! (Just like former CNN anchor Thomas Roberts, who says he left the network because his contract was up, not because anyone had a problem with him being gay.)
Most of all, it appears Perez is perplexed by his ousting. Even if he is a homo, and his bosses knew he was a homo, and all his viewers knew he was a homo, and the asteroid that smashed into Jupiter knew he was a homo, he was still pretty damn good at his job. And the news business is, well, a business. But also: An old boys club.
How about we take this to the next level?
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They say I was demoted for financial reasons, but their reasoning and their examples keep changing. They have continued to be the No. 1 station in the market, and my co-anchor and I have continued to deliver the ratings—along with stellar performance reviews. It just doesn’t ring true.
What does make sense is that, by living honestly, I began not to fit into their valuable picture. And so, out of fear, to the back of the bus I was told to go.
But what about critics who will say Perez is an opportunist? That he’s using his sexuality as the best unemployment insurance ever? Well: Going after his bosses isn’t going to help him get another job. (But it could get him paid.)
I’ll probably never work in the news business again. Honestly, who’s going to hire a newsman, as good as he may be, who litigates against his employer? It’s not exactly a career builder. The good news, as my dentist told me August 6, the day I was fired, is: “They can only take your job. They can’t take your talent.”
Since my firing, I’ve added a retaliation charge to my discrimination claim with the Miami-Dade County Equal Opportunity Board. The case will now go before a three-judge panel, which can award damages.
We feel bad for Perez, not just for losing a well-paying job in a business that’s downsizing, but also because it sounds quite plausible he was axed for being gay — even if one of his bosses is also a gay man. But we’re not quite on board with Perez’s tactic to begin martyring himself. It may be reasonable to a degree, but if we’ve learned anything since Hillary Clinton‘s campaign, it’s best to let others compare you to The Greats.
I understand there are those who believe that my actions will actually make it harder for gay men and women to rise up, for fear they’ll start trouble. But that is no reason not to do the right thing. In the words of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” Barack Obama, in his acceptance speech on November 4, 2008, added that we play a part in that history and must put our hands on that arc and “bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.”
But hey, know what larger issue this brings up? If the network fired Perez simply because he was gay, it (almost) would have been perfectly legal! Yes, in 2009!
There are no state or federal laws to support my claim. I’m relying on a new county ordinance, enacted last November, that added sexual orientation as a protected class. A positive outcome could help push the need for a state law and for the passage of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which was recently reintroduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA).
Charles Perez: Fired gay news anchor, beacon for ENDA.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
Did you put meth on your Maypo this morning? One got whiplash trying to follow your written echolalia, but, note, he didn’t “compare himself” to recognized “The Greats”—he quoted some. HUGE difference. And the “justice” they were referring to was meant to include even TV news anchors.
AND you misreport the chain of events.
First, he was told he was TOO anchor-like…too much like “Brian Williams,” even though his job was as an anchor and a recent poll showed Williams the most popular of the big three network anchors among Americans.
Then, within weeks, after the leaked e-mail story became public, he was told by the same person he wasn’t anchor-like enough…along with the “girlfriends” line. If he can prove those contradictions…and the judge isn’t homophobic…we sense some major employement law whipass coming.
It would have also been more fair for you to have included this quote:
“One of my colleagues, a higher-up at the station, told me: ‘The weekends will be better for you, anyway, Charles. You and Keith [my partner] want to have kids. It’s a lot less high-profile there’.
It was a suggestion that never would have been made to one of my straight colleagues, male or female. The only thing I could take from it was that my profile as a gay man, especially if I were to have kids and, God forbid, get married, would render me less promotable and less advertiser-friendly.
In fact, over the previous five months, I’d been told, ‘Don’t get married, Charles. We don’t need that’. I’d also been told not to have children. In essence: ‘You’re the main anchor and you’re gay, but let’s not push it’.”
Sorry, I don’t understand why you feel the need to treat this Perez with the snark you have the other one with Miami/Cuban connections: Perez Hilton.
Bill
“But what about critics who will say Perez is an opportunist? That he’s using his sexuality as the best unemployment insurance ever? Well: Going after his bosses isn’t going to help him get another job.”
What ABOUT the critics? And furthermore, who CARES? Surely you aren’t suggesting that Mr. Perez should just keep his gay mouth shut and take this abuse from his employers?
Only when we as INDIVIDUALS stand up to EACH and EVERY incident of abuse and discrimination will we see any kind of change.
Look, Heterosexuals have made it perfectly clear that their intentions are to continue to discriminate against us and abuse us at EVERY given opportunity.
It is up to US to fix that, as they have no intention of dealing with their character-flaw of abusing and discriminating against the very Gay people they put on this earth. It is up to US to stand up each and every time this happens.
Suggesting that Mr. Perez do otherwise only outs the author of this article as a Gay person who actually believes the rhetoric that Heterosexuals have been trying to teach Gay people about ourselves for centuries.
If what Mr. Perez says is true, than he is doing the right thing. Even if it means he will have to seek employment in another field.
Jaroslaw
I agree with comments posted so from Michael #1 and Bill #2. Won’t add much except to say you can’t win in the media business:
If one has no comment, people say “what does he/she have to hide?”
If one says little, the complaint is “nothing of substance was said.”
If one tells the story in the length true comprehension requires – then individual quotes can be cherry picked and used out of context.
I hope that he wins big if his claims are true since he no doubt won’t be working again as an anchor. Unfortunate since a fair employer has little to fear….
countervail
I have to agree with the previous commenters. What’s with all the speculation and cannibalistic intent of the article here?
It’s what’s so troubling in the world of “journalism” or blogging in that everyone either expresses their viewpoint, without specific examination of real, known facts, or hyper-dramatizes hypotheses about the story.
“But what about critics who will say Perez is an opportunist?” Who is saying this? Could you please just stick to the facts and leave the hyper-rhetoric and paranoia to the Right?
ggreen
Notice the author of this hackneyed hit piece wouldn’t even sign his name to it. This blog is fast circling the drain substituting actual posts for advertising.
Yuki
My god, I’m realizing more and more that this blog is increasingly bitchy.
jarvisbearcub
If he was bad at his job, which this writer implies, where is the evidence? Perez writes that he had stellar performance reviews. Was he queen-y on the show?
The employers had to know he was out. Even if he was trying to be closeted when he had that national talk show in the 90s, he was Norman’s “friend” on the very first season of the Real World.
According to the Wikipedia page (so it MUST be true, but still) there are issues of personal drama in his life that contributed to this.