This Phoenix article, by the always excellent Adam Reilly, is really astounding. Howie Carr had Randy Price -- the openly gay, married to his husband, TV personality who was recently let go from his anchorman job at Channel 7 -- on his WRKO radio show recently. You know, the radio show that is normally ground zero for
accompanying on-air references to homosexuality with a crude audio approximation of gay sex (the sound in question is actually former Boston city councilor David Scondras, who's gay, clearing his throat rather . . . emphatically).
Adam also reminds us about
Carr's occasional forays into gay-baiting (which, among other things, have included use of the phrase "sodomy lobby" in his Boston Herald column).
But, Adam reports, during Carr's nearly half-hour interview with Price, there was none of that. No anti-gay slurs; no jokes about gay marriage even when Price mentioned his husband (for instance, he didn't "accidentally" refer to Price's "wife"); nothing about the "sodomy lobby" or "sodomites," as Howie's fond of saying in his columns, nothing. Adam asked Howie why.
"I like Randy Price," Carr tells the Phoenix via e-mail. "I don't care about his sexual orientation - he's a good guy, he's a friend of mine, and I'm sorry he's gone. I offered to put in a good word for him at WTKK [96.9 FM] if he wants to try talk radio."
Wow. I mean, like, wow. So it's fine to make fun of anonymous gay people, belittle their struggles for same-sex marriage, and play the hilarious sodomy simulator on the radio ... but when it comes to an actual person, "I don't care about his sexual orientation - he's a good guy."
Price explains it this way:
"We go way back," Price says of Carr. "I know that part of Howie, and I think he plays that stuff because he finds it entertaining, but he's always been extremely nice and cordial to me. That's the only important thing in my mind, because I try to make it respectable to be who I am - an openly gay person who has a long-term relationship. He treats me with respect, and that goes a long way."
Personally, I wouldn't let Howie off that easy. Howie's made a lot of money by playing up his "gays are icky" act (which apparently is indeed an act). But talk-radio shenanigans actually do have consequences in the real world. Price, who according to Adam "has a lengthy history of activism on behalf of Boston's gay community," is perhaps just trying to be polite, but he should find a way of letting Howie know that it's not enough just to say that "some of my best friends are gay."
Congratulations to Adam Reilly for some excellent media reporting on this.
