The blacklisting of Pat Buchanan from MSNBC represents another case of the uber left refusing to entertain viewpoints counter to the "orthodoxies" they espouse. I certainly don't agree with everything Buchanan says, but on the other hand, he says a lot of things worthy of serious reflection and debate.
Naturally the gay and lesbian crowd went after him when he had the temerity to say "I believe homosexual acts to be 'unnatural and immoral.'" The Human Rights Campaign (America's leading voice for lesbians, bisexuals, gays and transgendered people) said that Buchanan's "extremist ideas are incredibly harmful to millions of LBGT people around the world." Buchanan's response is simple: "That homosexual acts are unnatural and immoral has been doctrine in the Catholic Church for 2,000 years."
In his response to being let go, "Blacklisted, But Not Beaten," Buchanan discusses the accusations hurled at him of being not only a homophobe, but a racist and an anti-semite as well.
The Family Research Council offers its own take on Buchanan's dismissal:
Fired Fighter
After 10 years of commentating on MSNBC, Pat Buchanan is out of a job. The network decided to "part ways" with the former presidential candidate after intense pressure from rabid activists, who whined that Buchanan's new book, Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2015? hurt their feelings. His views on homosexuality and the decline of Christian America triggered the rage of the Left and resulted in a massive campaign of corporate bullying. As usual, liberals bombard the media with cries of "discrimination" and "intolerance" until the networks relent and agree to a one-sided debate. In his "Blacklisted, But Not Beaten" column, Pat exposes the strategy of the liberals who are too afraid to dialogue.
[Buchanan writes:] The modus operandi of these thought police... is to prattle about their love of dissent and devotion to the First Amendment, [while] they seek systematically to silence and censor dissent. Without a hearing, they smear and stigmatize as racist, homophobic, or anti-Semitic any who contradict what George Orwell once called their 'smelly little orthodoxies.' They then demand that the heretic recant, grovel, apologize, and pledge to go forth and sin no more. Defy them, and they will go after the network where you work, the newspapers that carry your column, the conventions that invite you to speak. If all else fails, they go after the advertisers. I know these blacklisters. They operate behind closed doors, with phone calls, mailed threats, and off-the-record meetings. They work in the dark because, as Al Smith said, nothing un-American can live in the sunlight.
"Let error be tolerated," Pat quoted Thomas Jefferson, "so long as reason is free to combat it." The media, and in fact our entire society, was built on a foundation of civil debate. Like Pat, radical liberals work hard to keep FRC off TV and radio. I'm thankful that MSNBC and other networks have allowed several of my FRC teammates and me to represent your values in many recent debates.
Me: In his article defending himself, Buchanan wrote:
Documented in the 488 pages and 1,500 footnotes of Suicide of a Superpower is my thesis that America is Balkanizing, breaking down along the lines of religion, race, ethnicity, culture, and ideology and that Western peoples are facing demographic death by century’s end. Are such subjects taboo? Are they unfit for national debate?
So it would seem. MSNBC President Phil Griffin told reporters, “I don’t think the ideas that [Buchanan] put forth [in his book] are appropriate for the national dialogue, much less on MSNBC.”
I think such subjects are eminently worthy of serious discussion. That a TV station thinks differently illustrates the mentality that is fueling the "suicide of a superpower."