MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid issued a weak apology after recently unearthed blog posts written by Reid from a decade ago were found on an internet archive website on Saturday that showed “homophobic conspiracies and anti-gay jokes.”
Reid, 48, was the editor of the political The Reid Report, where she wrote at least a dozen blog posts from 2007 through 2009 that contained offensive anti-gay remarks.
Mediaite reports:
Reid wrote numerous bigoted blog posts smearing, mocking, and attacking former Florida governor Charlie Crist. These rants included calling Crist “Miss Charlie” and sarcastically using the tags “gay politicians” and “not gay politicians” — despite the fact that the twice-married, heterosexual man has never come-out as gay.
Reid went on to spread the crackpot conspiracy theory that Crist was actually a closeted gay man who refused to come out for fear that his sexual orientation would hurt his political career. Additionally, the AM Joy host claims Crist’s marriages to women are part of this elaborate cover up.
On Sunday, Reid issued an apology to The Wrap, claiming that she at no time sought to demean people of the LGBT community, but rather sought to call out the “potential hypocrisy” of Crist:
In 2007 I was a morning talk radio host and blogger, writing about Florida politics (a blog I maintained until 2011.) Among the frequent subjects of my posts was then-governor Charlie Crist, at the time a conservative Republican, whose positions on issues like gay marriage and adoption by same-sex couples in Florida shared headlines with widely rumored reports that he was hiding his sexual orientation. Those reports were the subject of lots of scrutiny: by LGBTQ bloggers, writers and journalists, conservative blogs, a controversial documentary film called “Outrage,” and even by the comedic writers at South Park.
Reid further apologized for her “insensitive, tone-deaf and dumb” comments by saying she regrets the way she mocked the issue of a potential homosexual person being in the “closet.” Reid also “deeply apologize[d]” to Congressman Crist and said she was “disappointed” in herself and that life can be “humbling.”
The unearthed blog posts were first reported by Paste Magazine, which discovered them when a Twitter account posted the alleged old writings belonging to Reid in the following thread: