Breaking news: a fully grown man competing for Team USA in the 2018 Winter Olympics gets his news from a magazine geared towards teenage girls.
Meet Adam Rippon, an outspoken men's figure skater who touts some rather odd reasons for disliking our current nation's leadership. Rippon is the first openly gay male figure skater to compete for Team USA in the Olympics. Considering his lifestyle choices, a lot of news outlets want to know how he feels about politics and stuff. More specifically, what does Adam think of President Trump's administration? And that's how he came to share a head-scratching opinion with USA Today.
During a recent interview Adam Rippon told the outlet he's very concerned because Vice President Mike Pence supports anti-gay conversion therapy.
"“You mean Mike Pence, the same Mike Pence that funded gay conversion therapy?” Rippon said of his selection to lead the American delegation. “I’m not buying it.”"
In case you're unaware, anti-gay conversation therapy is the process by which a therapist tries to turn a gay person straight. It's basically pseudo-science - most experts would argue you can't talk someone into changing the true nature of their sexuality. If you're straight, it's unlikely someone could counsel you into turning gay [and visa-versa]. The practice is considered ineffective if not somewhat barbaric. And guess what? There's no evidence to prove Vice President Mike Pence supports this concept. Zilch. Nada. It's fake news, folks.
So how did this tidbit of confusion make it's way to an interview with a national news outlet and an headline grabbing Olympic athlete? Well, we have a little girl's news website to thank [or not thank]. Back during the end of the 2016 election Teen Vogue [a magazine that's literally geared towards entertaining girls who haven't yet matured to adulthood] dropped a bombshell. In an expose on our future VP, they associated Mike Pence's conservative beliefs with the anti-gay conversion therapy concept by distorting tiny elements of truth from the past. All great lies are created with grains of truth, after all.
The article from November 2016 first explains what anti-gay conversion therapy is:
"Conversion therapy is an effort to change someone from gay to straight using forceful and often traumatic means. It has been proven to be ineffective, and it's also inhumane. Conversion therapy has been banned in five states and can include exorcism, electroshock therapy, and inducing nausea. If administered, it can lead to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness, and suicide. "
Wow! That stuff sounds pretty awful. Did Mike Pence perform an exorcism or electroshock some gay dude? Nope, not quite.
Without skipping a beat the article continues:
"On the campaign website for Mike Pence's 2000 run for Congress, Mike Pence writes, "Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.""
Technically this statement is true, Mike Pence supports the idea of helping people change their sexual behavior. But this statement has absolutely nothing to do with conversion therapy. What Mike Pence is literally talking about is counseling and social services for former prostitutes and victims of sex trafficking, an idea that most Left-leaning politicos claim to support. There's nothing in the text from Pence's website about turning gays and lesbians into straight guys and gals. And that's where the whole "Mike Pence supports electroshock therapy for gay people" narrative came from. A magazine for little girls got confused about a vague statement from a long time ago and performed a series of mental gymnastics [which is technically a summer Olympic event] to twist the truth into a bunch of misleading nonsense.
I'm sure Adam Rippon is a fantastic athlete [although I have no idea because I don't watch men's figure skating], but he'd be doing himself [and his nation] a favor in the future by getting his news from an outlet geared towards adults [or just don't spout off your misguided political beliefs to news outlets if you don't know what you're talking about - you don't have to answer every question the media asks you]. I mean, dude, you're a fully grown man and you're getting your news from Teen Vogue? Come on, bro. Yikes. The egg is on your face, Adam [I mean, we hope that's egg... but that's none of our business].
1 of 4 2 of 4 3 of 4 4 of 4