Topic: Media Research Center
Remember earlier this year, when the Media Research Center's Culture & Media Institute went into freakout mode over a J. Crew ad featuring one of the clothing firm's designers painting her young son's toenails pink, declaring that it was "blatant propaganda celebrating transgendered children"? Well, they're feeling pretty smug over the latest chapter in this story: the designer, Jenna Lyons, is involved in a messy divorce battle with her husband, which includes allegations that Lyons "has fallen in love with another woman."
The MRC now feels vindicated in its attack on Lyons.
An Oct. 25 NewsBusters post by Paul Wilson declares a weird sort of victory, baselessly asserting that the Lyons ad "was clearly meant to serve as pro-transgender propaganda or at least normalize gender confusion," and huffed that "many in the media scornfully dismissed the transgender aspects of the ad, and portrayed members of the conservative community as hysterical, hypersensitive fools.: Wilson added: "But the company line at J. Crew, and recent behavior of Lyons, tells a different story. Could it possibly be that the media was wrong on this issue, and CMI was right?"
Um, no. He has no proof beyond his own vivid imagination that the ad "was clearly meant to serve as pro-transgender propaganda," utterly discounting the fact that young children like bright colors, think it's fun to paint themselves bright colors, and haven't assigned gender roles to those colors.
The bottom line is that CMI's attack on Lyons was driven by homophobia, and claiming that the attack is vindicated because she may have a female lover is homophobia as well. Wilson is confusing vindication with bigotry.
