CALL TO ACTION! - “Gunny” Bob Newman Links Military Service by Gay People to Greater HIV Risk

GLAAD just issued a call to action urging people to contact Clear Channel Communications and Denver station KOA over recent anti-gay comments made by host “Gunny” Bob Newman.

Please see below for more information and TAKE ACTION!

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New York, NY, January 9, 2009 – On January 7  “Gunny” Bob Newman, host of The Gunny Bob Show on Colorado’s KOA-AM Radio, used his Clear Channel-owned media platform to make false and defamatory comments about gay service members. Newman suggested that lifting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the ban on allowing qualified gay military personnel to serve openly in the armed forces, would lead to greater HIV risk.

Colorado Media Matters released audio and transcript versions of the program. In it, Newman made the following claims (click here for audio):

Interesting, though, how Barack Obama, who strictly avoided military service, has – says that the key test must be those things. He left a lot of stuff out. Like being able to fight with as much combat power as you possibly can. And if we have gays serving openly in the military, according to the military, that is going to reduce their combat power. You reduce combat power, casualties can go up. 

We had a doctor call in the last hour, a military doctor, been in a long time, and he explained the dangers of HIV-AIDS on the battlefield. Especially when it comes to combat transfusions at the battalion aid station or where have you, in the back of a Hummer ambulance, wherever. And I added there’s also the danger of contamination when it comes to all the first responders on scene. 

Often times that’s gonna be a medic or a corpsman. Or just another soldier – doesn’t have to be a medic or a corpsman or a Marine or what have you – who faces the additional risk of HIV-AIDS contamination. And the doctor also went on to explain, you know, how these transfusions are sought and how quickly they must happen. And he pointed out that if we do this, and more and more gays join the military and they are HIV-positive or suffering from AIDS, and their blood ends up getting transfused, you know, into another military person, well, then that’s a death sentence for the other person too. 303-713-8585.

This doesn’t bother Barack Obama. It doesn’t faze him in the least. He doesn’t care if a soldier or a Marine or a SEAL or what have you gets HIV, becomes HIV-positive, and then develops AIDS and dies because he happened to get a transfusion from an, say, an openly gay person with a very active sexual, open lifestyle.

Because to Obama, what’s most important is two things, being politically correct – excuse me, three things: being politically correct; functioning as a good leftist; and number three, paying back the gay and lesbian lobby, which donated such staggering sums of money to his campaign. He owes them a lot of money.

A recent Harris Interactive Survey showed that almost two thirds of U.S. adults favor allowing openly gay military personnel to serve in the armed forces. For more information, click here.

Please contact Clear Channel-owned KOA-FM executives in Denver, Colorado and Clear Channel Communications national executives in San Antonio, Texas to demand that they reprimand “Gunny” Bob Newman for his inappropriate and offensive remarks.  Call on them to stop allowing their platforms to be used to perpetuate false and defamatory stereotypes about the LGBT community.

Contact:

KOA-AM

Mr. Lee Larsen
Vice President & General Manager
KOA-AM 
Outlet Phone: (303) 713-8000 
Email: leelarsen@clearchannel.com

Ms. Kristine Olinger
Director of AM Programming
KOA-AM 
Outlet Phone:  (303) 713-8000 
Email: kristineolinger@clearchannel.com

Clear Channel Communications

Ms. Kathryn Johnson
Senior Vice President of Corporate Relations
Clear Channel Communications 
Outlet Phone:  (210) 822-2828
Email: kathrynmaysjohnson@clearchannel.com

Ms. Lisa Dollinger
Chief Communications Officer
Clear Channel Communications 
Outlet Phone:  (210) 822-2828
Email: lisacdollinger@clearchannel.com

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