Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi tried to ingratiate herself to Anderson Cooper on a live CNN interview in Orlando, but I’ll bet she didn’t expect to be challenged the way she was. After Bondi praised Cooper for calling out the names of the 49 victims massacred at Pulse nightclub, he switched gears, pointing out her “hypocrisy” in regard to Florida’s gay community.
“I saw you the other day, saying that anyone who attacks the LGBT community — our LGBT community, you said — will be gone after to the full extend of the law. I talked to a lot of gay and lesbian people here yesterday who are not fans of yours and said that they thought you were being a hypocrite, that you for years have fought—you’ve basically gone after gay people, said that in court that gay people simply by fighting for marriage equality were trying to do harm to the people of Florida.
Do you really think you’re a champion of the gay community?”
Bondi did her best to sidestep the questions, arguing that her opposition to marriage equality simply boiled down to the oath she took to uphold the law.
“I’ve never said I don’t like gay people.”
Bondi filed a brief in May 2014 that claimed,
“disrupting Florida’s existing marriage laws would impose significant public harm.”
Cooper asked whether she was concerned that this kind of language might “send a message” to people like Omar Mateen or other potentially dangerous people who harbor dangerous animosity towards the gay community and already have “bad ideas in mind.”
She then insisted that she never thought gay marriage would cause “harm.”
“Those words never came out of my mouth.“
Cooper shot back,
“That’s what you argued in court. The hotline that you’ve been talking about on television, which allows family members and spouses of the dead to get information, which is incredibly important, and I appreciate you talking about on the air… had there been no gay marriage, no same-sex marriage, you do realize that spouses—there would be no spouses, that boyfriends and girlfriends of the dead would not be able to get information and would not be able to visit in the hospital here. Isn’t there a sick irony in that?”
Is it hypocritical to portray yourself as a champion of the gay community when —I’m just reflecting what gay people told me —they don’t see you as this? It’s just that, I will say I have never really seen you talk about gays and lesbians and transgender people in a positive way until now.”
Watch.
(via Queerty)
