Michael Knowles argued during a recent episode of his show that gay couples aren’t fit to raise children because they lack attributes or qualities possessed by those of the opposite gender that are essential to child-rearing.
The right-wing windbag was defending University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, who made racially insensitive, sexist, and homophobic comments in class. Wax also invited a white supremacist to address one of her classes.
The University punished Wax, who has a history of controversial statements, with a suspension and docked her pay by half. It also stripped her of her endowed chair as the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law, and is blocking her from receiving summer pay in perpetuity.
Conservative activists have championed Wax as the patron saint of academic freedom on college campuses, arguing that her comments are protected speech and that punishing her will have consequences for others who express unpopular opinions. Wax has threatened to sue the university.
Knowles seized on one of Wax’s more outlandish statements, in which she claimed that “gay couples are not fit to raise children,” and tried to ideologically defend her reasoning.
“Amy Wax commented in class that gay couples are not fit to raise children,” Knowles said during a recent episode of The Michael Knowles Show. “That’s just obviously true. Does anyone seriously disagree with that? I guess some people do seriously disagree with that. People who think that men and women are exactly the same might try to disagree with that.”
Knowles argued that since same-sex couples cannot physically produce children together, “they are literally not fit to beget, and therefore to raise children.”
The conservative Catholic then added, “Even if they adopt a child or even if they go to the baby store and purchase the eggs from one woman and rent the womb of another woman and create a child as though the child were a handbag to be purchased at Ferragamo or something — even if they do that — they’re not fit to raise a child.”
Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is nothing new for Knowles. He believes same-sex relationships are inherently illegitimate and that gay and lesbian couples who live together are just “pretending” to be married.
The Trump administration suspended $175 million in federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania as punishment for having allowed transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to compete in 2022.
Thomas originally competed for the men's swim team but competed on the women's team following her transition.
She complied with what NCAA regulations regarding transgender athlete eligibility were at the time, undergoing hormone therapy for a year before competing.
In 2022, Thomas began breaking school and meet records, becoming the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship medal in the Division I women's 500-yard freestyle event.
Republicans in nine states are calling for the overturn of marriage equality.
In Idaho, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, lawmakers have introduced resolutions demanding the U.S. Supreme Court reverse its landmark 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the court struck down all existing state-level same-sex marriage bans.
Last month, the Idaho House of Representatives voted 46-24 to approve one such resolution, asking the nation's highest court to "restore the natural definition of marriage, a union of one man and one woman."
While the resolution is non-binding and doesn't require the Supreme Court to take action, Republican lawmakers see it as a "messaging" bill that expresses their extreme displeasure with same-sex marriage.
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Michael Knowles argued during a recent episode of his show that gay couples aren’t fit to raise children because they lack attributes or qualities possessed by those of the opposite gender that are essential to child-rearing.
The right-wing windbag was defending University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, who made racially insensitive, sexist, and homophobic comments in class. Wax also invited a white supremacist to address one of her classes.
The University punished Wax, who has a history of controversial statements, with a suspension and docked her pay by half. It also stripped her of her endowed chair as the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law, and is blocking her from receiving summer pay in perpetuity.
Conservative activists have championed Wax as the patron saint of academic freedom on college campuses, arguing that her comments are protected speech and that punishing her will have consequences for others who express unpopular opinions. Wax has threatened to sue the university.
Knowles seized on one of Wax’s more outlandish statements, in which she claimed that “gay couples are not fit to raise children,” and tried to ideologically defend her reasoning.
“Amy Wax commented in class that gay couples are not fit to raise children,” Knowles said during a recent episode of The Michael Knowles Show. “That’s just obviously true. Does anyone seriously disagree with that? I guess some people do seriously disagree with that. People who think that men and women are exactly the same might try to disagree with that.”
Knowles argued that since same-sex couples cannot physically produce children together, “they are literally not fit to beget, and therefore to raise children.”
The conservative Catholic then added, “Even if they adopt a child or even if they go to the baby store and purchase the eggs from one woman and rent the womb of another woman and create a child as though the child were a handbag to be purchased at Ferragamo or something — even if they do that — they’re not fit to raise a child.”
Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is nothing new for Knowles. He believes same-sex relationships are inherently illegitimate and that gay and lesbian couples who live together are just “pretending” to be married.
He has called for drag queens and Pride parade attendees to be arrested and prosecuted for indecent behavior, and has asserted that transgender identity “must be eradicated from public life” for the betterment of society.
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