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Right-wing media outlets are criticizing the Washington attorney general for enforcing non-discrimination laws against a florist who refused to offer her services for a same-sex wedding.

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit on April 9 against Arlene's Flowers and Gifts, a florist that refused to supply flowers for the wedding of a same-sex couple due to her religious beliefs. According to the lawsuit, the florist violated the state's Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits businesses from discriminating against customers on the basis of sexual orientation.

Right-wing media outlets have jumped on the story, touting it as evidence of the gay community's hostility towards religious freedom.

Fox News Radio reporter Todd Starnes called the lawsuit "anti-Christian," publishing an article laden with quotes from anti-gay activists:

American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer cited the incident as an example of "homofascism":

CNN's Erin Burnett suggested that media "on the left" may have failed to cover the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell for political reasons -- even though Burnett herself had never previously covered Gosnell's story.

Gosnell is currently on trial for murder, accused of grotesque behavior in providing illegal late-term abortions. Conservative media have been engaged in a campaign to pressure the media for providing what they consider insufficient coverage to the trial.

On the April 12 broadcast of her show, Burnett hosted a segment to examine why the story "hasn't gotten much attention in the media at all, it seems." While discussing the trial with Salon reporter Irin Carmon, Burnett said:

BURNETT: [T]here are many people out there, as you're aware, on the right who are saying, "Look, it's pro-choice people on the left who aren't going to cover this story, because they're pro-choice and this hurts their agenda. It's such an awful, horrific thing. It'll make people more adverse to abortion. That's bad for them, so they're not covering it." What do you say to those people as someone who reports on this issue? 

Burnett then acknowledged that CNN's own research showed there were almost no media outlets that had run stories "which mentioned [Gosnell's] name more than three times," indicating that the story wasn't being covered "only on the right, obviously."

Yet moments later, she asked guest Donna Brazile, "Do you reject the argument that is being made by many on the right ... that, they say, the mainstream media and those who are pro-choice have ignored this story because it makes abortion look horrific?"

According to a Nexis search, Burnett's own show has never, before this broadcast, covered Gosnell's story.

Ann Coulter has drawn criticism in recent days over a so-called joke she made about killing Meghan McCain, the daughter of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Coulter's remarks follow a pattern of invoking murder against her political opponents.

In an April 10 column, Coulter wrote, "MSNBC's Martin Bashir suggested that Republican senators need to have a member of their families killed for them to support the Democrats' gun proposals. (Let's start with Meghan McCain!)" The column drew harsh criticism from Cindy and Meghan McCain, who accused Coulter of only living "to spread hate and negativity." Coulter subsequently defended her comments on the April 11 edition of Fox News' Hannity, claiming "everyone laughed" when they read the joke. 

Coulter's remarks should come as no surprise. Coulter has routinely resorted to violent rhetoric against those with whom she disagrees:

In an August 2012 tweet during Mitt Romney's speech at the Republican National Convention, Coulter wrote, "KILL THE "($;&(:#* LIBERAL HECKLERS!" 

In a June 2011 appearance on Hannity, Coulter said of the massacre at Kent State: "That's what you do with a mob."

In June 2009, Coulter said she "didn't really like to think of" the murder of late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller as murder, adding: "It was terminating Tiller in the 203rd trimester."

In September 2001, Coulter wrote of Muslims: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

In August 2002, Coulter said, "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."

In an August 2009 interview on Hannity, Coulter said that Zeke Emanuel, the brother of Chicago mayor and former Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, "is on my death list."

In January 2006, Coulter said, "We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee." She added: "That's just a joke, for you in the media."

Fox News identified an immigrant as "undocumented" during an America Live segment today, even as the network has criticized others for using the term. In fact, host Megyn Kelly previously stated that referring to immigrants as "undocumented" is like calling rapists "nonconsensual sex partners."

During an America Live segment about the trial of a man who is reportedly in the country illegally, on-screen text read: "No Trial For Undocumented Immigrant For Now":

However, Kelly used "illegal alien" and "illegal immigrant" while talking about the case. She did not address the on-screen language.

In December 2010, a member of the Diversity Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists recommended that journalists stop using the term "illegal immigrant" in favor of "undocumented" immigrant or worker. In a December 29,2010, segment about the issue, Kelly stated:

KELLY: How far could you take this? I mean, you could say that a burglar is an unauthorized visitor. You know, you could say that a rapist is a non-consensual sex partner, I mean, which, obviously, would be considered offensive to the victims of those crimes. So how far could you take this?

Kelly added: "What if there was a push by the criminal defense bar to re-brand the use of the word rapist to nonconsensual sex partner?"

Fox News' The Five complained that the media had devoted significant time to the murder trial of Jodi Arias while avoiding that of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. The program's hosts had previously spent 21 minutes covering the Arias trial over seven episodes, but had never mentioned the Gosnell trial until levying their criticism of the media for ignoring the case.  

Gosnell is currently on trial for murder and accused of grotesque and barbaric behavior in the course of providing illegal late-term abortions. Conservatives have been engaged in a campaign to pressure the media for providing what they term insufficient coverage to the trial.

During the April 12 program, co-host Eric Bolling complained that the trial "isn't getting much attention in the press" because it "raises inconvenient issues,"while the Arias trial has received lots of coverage. He asked, "where is the liberal media now?" Promoting the upcoming segment, co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle described the case as an issue "that the mainstream media isn't reporting on."

A series of chyrons during the segment reinforced Bolling's attack:  "Media cover Arias trial while ignoring trial of abortion doctor," "MSM turns blind eye to abortion horrors," "Mainstream media ignores trial of abortion Dr. Kermit Gosnell."

The April 12 episode of The Five is the first time the Gosnell trial, which began March 18, has been mentioned on the program. By contrast, the hosts havecovered the Arias case over seven episodes for a total of 21 minutes and 33 seconds, according to a Media Matters review of Fox's programming.

Bolling's complaints echo those of the News Corp. owned New York Post, who complained about the "liberal media" ignoring the story while failing to cover it themselves. Salon.com's Alex Seitz-Wald has noted the conservative media's pattern of criticizing the mainstream media for not covering the trial even as they have only begun to mention the case over the past few days.

Other Fox News programs, including The O'Reilly Factor, Special Report, andHuckabee have covered the Gosnell trial.

The Los Angeles Times editorial board misleadingly suggested a proposed California anti-discrimination bill that would affect the Boy Scouts of America because of its anti-LGBT policy was not only unfair, but unconstitutional.

On April 10, the Los Angeles Times announced it was opposed to a new California bill that would deny a state sales and use tax exemption to any public charity youth organization that discriminates on the basis of "gender identity, race, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or religious affiliation," thereby aligning the conditions of this exemption with other state anti-discrimination law and policy. Because the government subsidy at issue is used by the Boy Scouts of America, the LAT correctly observed that its policy of discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation would run afoul of the proposed Youth Equality Act. The editorial board questioned whether the Boy Scouts "should be singled out from other nonprofits" and suggested  this was inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent that allows the Boy Scouts to ban LGBT members because of the group's "expressive message." From the editorial:

Under [The Youth Equality Act (SB 323)], carried by Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), the Boy Scouts of America (though unnamed in the bill) would have to pay state sales taxes as well as taxes on any money it raised in California -- such as the proceeds from hawking caramel corn, Christmas trees or anything else -- unless it admitted boys who are gay or transgender.

The aims of the bill are understandable and even laudable. But the Scouts' membership policy has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2000 ruled 5 to 4 that the ban on gay members is protected under the Constitution because the group's opposition to homosexuality is part of its "expressive message."

[...]

We yearn for the day when the closed-minded leaders of the Boy Scouts join the 21st century, but we also worry about the implications of SB 323. If legislators can go after the Scouts for engaging in legal (though offensive) behavior, what group will they go after next?

At the height of the manufactured "Climategate" controversy, distortions of an email from a top climate scientist made it all the way to one of the leading Sunday shows. But a recent study re-confirms what that scientist was actually saying -- that much of recent heat has been trapped deep in the ocean.

In 2009, a batch of emails was stolen from the University of East Anglia. In one of the emails, which skeptics quickly took out of context, Kevin Trenberth, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, lamented the "travesty" that "we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment." Trenberth was actually referring to gaps in our "observing system" that make it difficult to say where short-term energy -- or heat -- is going, not copping to a lack of long-term climate change, as some claimed. In the email, Trenberth alluded to research suggesting that the "missing" heat might be sequestered deep in the ocean. 

For some media, none of this mattered. In a November 2009 appearance on ABC's This Week, conservative columnist George Will suggested Trenberth's email showed that "global warming has stopped," and that since climate science is "a complicated business," we "shouldn't wager these trillions" on curbing greenhouse gas emissions. 

But a recent study published in the journal Nature Climate Change found that the ocean has in fact played a "key role" in absorbing recent heat, which "strengthens our confidence in the robustness of our climate models." The findings echo the conclusions of a paper co-authored by Trenberth himself as well as findings published in the journal Physics Letters A in late 2012, all indicating that climate change continues apace. 

Recent analyses by Media Matters show that the "Climategate" episode was typical of the way the influential Sunday shows favor political spin over scientific fact. On the rare occasion Sunday shows covered climate change between 2009 and 2012, not a single scientist or climate expert was part of the discussion. In addition, every politician who discussed climate change on the Sunday shows in 2012 was a Republican:

Examining trends more broadly, the Sunday shows have hosted more Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and progressives. In this environment, honest appraisals of science are rare, and commentators like George Will fit right in.

The Drudge Report falsely claimed that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius "scapegoat[ed]" Republicans when she pointed out that political opposition to health care reform has complicated its implementation. Although Sebelius never assigned blame to a specific party, GOP obstructionism has in fact made implementation more costly and more complicated.

Drudge linked to an Investor's Business Daily article which claimed that, in recent remarks to the Harvard School of Public Health, Sebelius "was trying to find a way to blame Republicans for ObamaCare's failures when the inevitable problems start emerging." Drudge's headline for the article read, "Sebelius Scapegoats GOP For Coming Obamacare Mess":

But Sebelius never scapegoated the GOP; she only pointed to the "relentless and continuous" politics and state-level opposition as hindering factors:

SEBELIUS: The second thing that probably has been more difficult is just the politics has been relentless and continuous. And I would say I think there was some hope that once the Supreme Court ruled in July and then once an election occurred there would be a sense that, 'This is the law of the land, let's get on board, let's make this work.' And yet we will find ourselves still having sort of state-by-state political battles and again creating what I think is a lot of confusion. It is very difficult when people live in a state where there is a daily declaration, 'We will not participate in the law,' for them to figure out whether there are any benefits that they actually have a right to access and so getting that word out about setting up the infrastructure has been more complicated.

Although Sebelius never blamed the GOP, it is true that Republican obstructionism has made implementation more difficult and costly than it would be otherwise. The Washington Post's Wonkblog pointed out the "incredible burden on the administration" caused by the GOP's "strategy of harassment and intransigence":

Fox News is trying to shift the national conversation on public safety laws, pointing to recent mass shootings to question the effectiveness of expanding background checks on gun purchases. But Fox's criticism ignores several other mass shootings committed by people who bought weapons without undergoing background checks, as well as the significant gun violence that experts say background checks will prevent.

On Thursday, the Senate defeated a Republican filibuster threat against tougher gun laws on a vote of 68-31. The vote cleared the way for a full debate on gun safety measures, including expanded background checks, next week.

In response, Fox News ran a segment premised on the idea that background checks are largely unnecessary because they would not have prevented Adam Lanza and other recent mass shooters from acquiring the guns they used. 

In fact, the loophole in federal law that allows prohibited persons to buy firearms without undergoing a background check has resulted in mass shootings. In October 2012, a shooting at a Wisconsin spa left three dead and four wounded. The Associated Press reported that the alleged shooter purchased a handgun from a private seller without a background check, and obtained the weapon two days after becoming the subject of a restraining order that required him to turn over all weapons to a county sheriff.

Other mass shootings in which shooters obtained their weapons from private individuals rather than licensed firearm dealers include the September 2011 shooting at a Nevada IHOP, which left 4 dead and 7 wounded, and the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, which left 13 dead and 21 wounded.

Moreover, this criticism misses the point; while background checks will not prevent all gun violence, they will prevent a significant amount. 

Fox News figures are dismissing the voices of the families who suffered in a mass shooting in Newtown, CT by claiming they're being used and exploited by Democrats, discounting the efforts they have made to encourage Congress to pass stronger gun laws.

On April 11, the Senate overcame a Republican-led filibuster that tried to block the beginning of debate on stronger gun laws with a 68-31 vote. The impetus for the new gun proposals was driven by the December mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut that left 26 victims dead, most of them young children. President Obama had been urging Congress to act to strengthen guns laws in response to the shooting for some time.

According to several Fox News figures, Obama has been using the families of the Newtown shooting victims as props for a political agenda.

On April 11, Fox News host Sean Hannity called the effort to strengthen gun laws "naked exploitation of dead children and grieving families," while his guest Ann Coulter said that Democrats are "play[ing] with these victims." The previous night, Hannity stated that the president "is once again using families of tragedy as props for his agenda." Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade said on his April 11 radio show that Obama is "using the Newtown families to push for background checks." Fox News White House reporter Ed Henry similarly said on April 9 that "for the second straight day, the White House used the victims of the Newtown tragedy to make their case." On his April 9 radio show, Fox News host Mike Huckabee suggested that taking some of the relatives of the Newtown shooting victims to Washington, DC on Air Force One to make their case for stronger gun laws was "an exploitation of those parents."

Such an attitude does a disservice to the many Newtown families that want tougher gun laws in the wake of their tragedies. Several of the families appeared on CBS' 60 Minutes on April 7 to discuss what kind of gun violence prevention measures they would like to see signed into law, saying that universal background checks and a ban on high-capacity magazines were important. After the vote that broke the GOP's threatened filibuster, more than 30 families of Newtown victims released a statement criticizing those who tried block an up-or-down vote on new gun legislation, saying that "[t]he senators who have vowed to filibuster this bill should be ashamed of their attempt to silence efforts to prevent the next American tragedy."

Kermit Gosnell, currently on trial for murder, appears to be a monster. There are no adjectives strong enough to describe the horrors that a grand jury says took place at the Women's Medical Society.

In recent weeks, anti-choice media figures have been agitating for more coverage of the Gosnell trial in the mainstream press, hoping to inject into public discourse the idea that all clinics performing abortions are the monstrous dens depicted in stark detail in the grand jury report.

I agree - the Gosnell trial does deserve more coverage. Not as a stain on abortion providers but as an indictment of the outcome if the anti-choice movement achieves its goals. Far from the practices of well-established medical facilities, the Women's Medical Society was the modern-day back alley, like those in the pre-Roe era where desperate women were butchered.

The Women's Medical Society's "real business," the grand jury report explicitly states, "was not health; it was profit. There were two primary parts to the operation. By day it was a prescription mill; by night an abortion mill."

To achieve his ends, "Gosnell's approach was simple: keep volume high, expenses low - and break the law. That was his competitive edge."

Conservatives are making the argument that "the reason the media and pro-abortion politicians are ignoring Gosnell's trial is because Gosnell was an abortionist. Seven of his victims were killed after they had been aborted, and one died after she had aborted. Why would people who believe in legalized abortion want to shed negative light on bad things that happen during legalized abortions?"

But these were crimes, not "bad things that happened" within legal structures. What the grand jury established is that Gosnell preyed on poor women, performing illegal abortions in unsanitary conditions. Those on the right have spent ample pixels reciting all the abhorrent practice, but have failed to note the critical component - that the actions they cite are illegal.

Pennsylvania, like other states, permits legal abortion within a regulatory framework. Physicians must, for example, provide counseling about the nature of the procedure. Minors must have parental or judicial consent. All women must wait 24 hours after first visiting the facility, in order to fully consider their decision. But Gosnell's compliance with such requirements was casual at best. At the Women's Medical Society, the only question that really mattered was whether you had the cash. Too young? No problem. Didn't want to wait? Gosnell provided same-day service.

As the anti-choice movement seeks to close the last remaining clinics in North Dakota, Mississippi, Kansas, and Arkansas, the ultimate result of its action will be to drive women into the hands of more Kermit Gosnells.

The fact the right refuses to face is that, as the grand jury explicitly stated, "the real key to the business model, though, was this: Gosnell catered to the women who couldn't get abortions elsewhere."

Those who will be taken advantage of are not the wealthy who can afford to travel to an alternative state where they can receive care, but the low-income who feel trapped by their circumstance. Remove legal and safe options, and women like the victims the right purports to be speaking for will turn to the Kermit Gosnells of the world. And it's the policies of the anti-choice movement that will drive them there.

Conservatives have responded to the bipartisan Senate proposal to expand thebackground check system for firearms purchases with apocalyptic, conspiratorial, and absurd rhetoric.

On April 10, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) announced they had reached an agreement on an amendment that would require criminal and mental health background checks for those seeking to purchase firearms at gun shows and online. The proposal is likely to be added to legislation currently being debated in the Senate. Polls show that Americans overwhelmingly support requiring a background check for more gun buyers.

Levin Links Deal To Communism, Facism, Genocide

Right wing radio host Mark Levin compared the deal to policies that bring about "genocide," arguing that "the greatest inhumanities ever committed have been by centralized governments against their people."

From the April 10 edition of Cumulus Media's The Mark Levin Show:

I just want to remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that the greatest inhumanity -- the greatest inhumantity has been committed by centralized governments against their people. The greatest inhumanity ever committed has been by centralized government against their people. Whether we call it national socialism or communism or facsism, I just call it all statism to make it easy, borrowing from Aristotle to Reagan.

You and I can't commit genocide. You and I can't destroy a nation from within.

There are many sick people in this world. They're killers. They kill people. They'll be killing people today. They'll be killing people tonight. I wish it wasn't so, but it is so. There are many evil people on the face of this earth. The way we try to deal with them is through law enforcement. The way we try to deal with them is culling them out from the rest of society and punishing them.

But the more that we put down the law-abiding people, the more we herd and shepherd the law-abiding people, the more information we gather on the law-abiding people, put them in central government databases and all the rest, the more we're destroying our society.

We are free people. We are a good people. These politicians seek to define you and me, by the evil people. And so they project these images onto you and me, and then they try and pass laws to control us, and deny us of liberty.

Erickson: Christians Will Be Denied Guns Due To Beliefs

Fox News contributor Erick Erickson claimed in a series of tweets that the mental health provisions in the agreement would allow a doctor to say someone was "crazy for believing in resurrected Jesus" which would lead to "liberal docs" barring the faithful from gun ownership.

Bolling Fearmongers Deal Will Lead To National Gun Registry, Which Deal Actually Bans (Again)

Fox News host Eric Bolling argued that the deal was "knocking on the door to a national registry." In fact, creating a national registry is already illegal and the proposal reaffirms that illegal status andincreases the penalty for creating a registry.

As the Huffington Post reported, "In addition to a potential jail sentence of 15 years, officials who create a gun registry or misuse federal records on gun sales or ownership would face a monetary fine."

Fox Nation has taken down a post it previously highlighted in which Ann Coulter joked about the death of Meghan McCain, the daughter of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). 

On April 10, Fox Nation linked to a column by Ann Coulter under the headline "Coulter: Liberals Go Crazy For The Mentally Ill." In the post, Coulter wrote, "MSNBC's Martin Bashir suggested that Republican senators need to have a member of their families killed for them to support the Democrats' gun proposals. (Let's start with Meghan McCain!)"

After the post was highlighted across various outlets, Fox Nation pulled it from its website. A cached version of the website shows that Fox Nation's original post included Coulter's joke about McCain's death:

Following Coulter's post, Meghan McCain responded on Twitter, saying, "Apparently Ann Coulter made a joke about me being killed in a recent column. I should expect nothing less but disgusted regardless." 

The U-T San Diego profiled a new anti-immigrant coalition in the San Diego region working to lobby against immigration reform but failed to note the coalition's ties to the nativist group, the Center for Immigration Studies, and to a former Minutemen organization.

In its profile of the San Diegans for Secure Borders Coalition, the U-T San Diego quoted a member of the coalition, Peter Nunez, who the U-T San Diego identified only as "a member of the coalition and a former U.S. attorney in San Diego." It also discussed the founding of the group by two San Diego residents, Jeff Schwilk and Rob Luton:

A new coalition in San Diego County is lobbying members of Congress to support a plan that calls for enhanced border enforcement, decreased legal immigration and the end of automatic citizenship for those born in the United States.

[...]

The coalition was formed by San Diego residents Jeff Schwilk and Rob Luton.

"Amnesty is a bad idea in general, but certainly it's a bad idea if you are not first going to ensure border enforcement and workplace enforcement," said Peter Nunez, a member of the coalition and a former U.S. attorney in San Diego. "If you don't secure the border and have a viable workplace enforcement program, then you will just be dealing with the same issue over and over and over again."

However, the newspaper did not note that many of the people highlighted in its story have a connection to nativist and former Minutemen groups. Nunez is the board chairman for the anti-immigrant nativist group, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). CIS is part of the John Tanton network of anti-immigrant nativist groups, which include the hate group the Federation for American Immigration Reform and NumbersUSA. CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian is known for making derogatory remarks about Muslims and the American-born children of immigrants.  

The coalition's founder Jeff Schwilk was "the hot-tempered leader of the San Diego Minutemen (SDMM), a nativist extremist organization with a reputation for violent confrontations and crude insults," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.  In 2009, Schwilk was ordered to pay $135,000 to a Korean-American civil rights activist who filed a defamation lawsuit after the SDMM circulated photos of her and referred to her in derogatory and racist terms. 

Fox News brushed aside criticism of Mattel's new Mexico Barbie doll, instead promoting cultural, anti-immigrant stereotypes.

Mattel recently released Mexico Barbie as part of Mattel's new "Dolls of the World" collection. According to its website, the doll is "dressed for a fabulous fiesta in her vibrant pink dress with ruffles, lace, and brightly colored ribbon accent." The doll, which comes with a "precious Chihuahua friend" and "a passport and sticker sheet to help record Barbie doll's travels," has attracted criticism for perpetuating racial sensitivity. ABC News reports:

While all the dolls in the collection come with a passport, some critics say Mexico Barbie is representative of cultural insensitivity, rather than an educational tool that "teaches girls about the culture, traditions and ancestral dress of Mexico," as described by Mattel on its website.

"It sounds to me like Mattel took some shortcuts," Jason Ruiz, a professor of American studies at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Ind., said. "The bright pink ribbons? A Chihuahua? That kind of stuff is so easy to use."

On the April 11 edition of America's Newsroom, Fox News co-host Julie Banderas briefly mentioned the controversy surrounding the doll, but dismissed its implications. Banderas used the doll's fake passport to promote an anti-immigrant stereotype, saying, "It's a faux passport so I hope she doesn't cross the borders illegally." Co-host Martha MacCallum added, "Good luck with that."

Dr. Ben Carson, a rising star in conservative media, announced today that he would step down as commencement speaker at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His decision followed a widespread backlash in the media and on campus after he compared the LGBT community to "NAMBLA" and "people who believe in bestiality." 

From the Baltimore Sun:

Neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson stepped down Wednesday as commencement speaker at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine after complaints from students about controversial comments concerning same-sex marriage.

[...]

"Given all the national media surrounding my statements as to my belief in traditional marriage, I believe it would be in the best interest of the students for me to voluntarily withdraw as your commencement speaker this year," he wrote in the letter to [Dean Paul] Rothman, which the dean shared with the Hopkins community.

Media Matters previously documented Ben Carson's promotion by right wing media figures after he trumpeted conservative policy ideas during a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. Carson was ultimately burned by that media exposure. 

The controversial remarks cited by the Baltimore Sun came during Carson's March 26 appearance on Fox News' Hannity. In reference to efforts to overturn bans on same-sex marriage, Carson said, "No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn't matter what they are -- they don't get to change the definition."

Those comments led Johns Hopskins students to launch a petition for his removal as commencement speaker, which petitioners said more than half of the graduating class had signed. Carson was also criticized by colleagues at Johns Hopkins who called his comments "hurtful" and "extremely discouraging." In a statement to Media Matters, the co-director of Johns Hopkins University's Program for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Professor Todd Shepard, said Carson's statements made him look, "nasty, petty, and ill-informed." Carson eventually apologized for his comments, before calling his critics "racists," and then apologizing again.

Carson once wrote that marriage equality could lead to the fall of America like the "fall of the Roman Empire." As of April 2, Carson was scheduled to give the keynote address at a banquet hosted by the Illinois Family Institute, an anti-gay hate group.

According to the Baltimore Sun, "Carson also stepped down as speaker for the Johns Hopkins University School of Education diploma ceremony. New speakers have not been chosen for either commencement address."

Fox News inflated the threat of fraud in the Utah disability benefits program, stoking fears that fraud is rampant even though it amounts to less than 1 percent of the entire benefits program in the state. 

On April 10, the Social Security Administration announced that Utah's attorney general and the Social Security inspector general's office identified 368 cases of alleged fraud in the state, and 157 of the people accused of fraud were denied their Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefit claims as a result.

Fox & Friends trumpeted this finding on April 11, with co-host Gretchen Carlson saying that "you've got to wonder if every state did this and had somebody look into the alleged fraud that's going on in our social security disability system, that there would be a lot of money to come up that might be helpful when we're discussing the budget." Fox displayed the following graphic during the segment:

On April 11, Fox Nation similarly stoked the fear of SSDI fraud based on the findings of the Utah attorney general and the Social Security inspector general's office:

In fact the Utah attorney general's finding proved that fraud is not a major problem with SSDI in Utah. According to the latest available data, there are 48,777 SSDI recipients in Utah. 157 cases of fraud only amounts to only .3 percent of all recipients.

Indeed the Utah attorney general's finding that there are only a few cases of SSDI fraud in Utah confirmed that fraud in SSDI is a very small problem. A March 2012 Government Accountability Office report found that the improper payments from the Social Security Administration program that includes disability insurance totaled 0.6 percent in fiscal year 2011.

Moreover, SSDI eligibility requirements are stringent with more than half of all claims being denied.

NRA News host Cam Edwards claimed that Buzzfeed promoted the views of Al Qaeda by reporting on a video of an Al Qaeda spokesperson encouraging terrorists to use gun shows to obtain weapons without a background check. This claim comes as a deal has reportedly been struck for legislation that would require a background check for all sales at gun shows.

Edwards also downplayed the well-documented patronage of gun shows by terrorists and other dangerous individuals.

On the April 10 edition of NRA News' Cam & Company, Edwards accused reporter Andrew Kaczynski of "approvingly citing Al Qaeda to bolster gun control arguments," and asked, "I wonder when Buzzfeed is going to start citing Al Qeada's pop culture criticism of the United States too?"

EDWARDS: So Buzzfeed's Andrew Kaczynski is now approvingly citing Al Qaeda to bolster gun control arguments. Remember the chairman of Buzzfeed has said I'm not going to give money to any Democrat candidates who don't vote for gun control. Kaczynski has a piece at Buzzfeed right now, "Even Al Qaeda Thought America's Gun Background Check System Was Weak." Right. I wonder when Buzzfeed is going to start citing Al Qeada's pop culture criticism of the United States too. Kaczynski gives this example of [American Al Qaeda spokesperson] Adam Gadahn who said back in 2011, "America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?" Now Al Qaeda was wrong about our gun laws. But hey, they actually repeated this, you know, President Obama made the same incorrect statement about fully automatic firearms. What the heck. Everybody gets it wrong I guess. It's just weird that Buzzfeed is like, "Well see look Al Qaeda said our gun laws are weak so we should totally change our gun laws." 17 Al Qaeda Cats.

Fox News Radio reporter Todd Starnes criticized an email from a U.S. Army officer condemning anti-gay hate speech, suggesting that the email was a sign of "the end of days" and warning his audience that "your military is being turned against you."

In an April 9 article for Fox News Radio, Starnes reported that an email from Lt. Col. Jack Rich instructed subordinates to be on the lookout for behaviors that are "inconsistent with Army Values," including showing support for a number of "hate groups" operating in the U.S.

The email included a list of anti-gay groups like the Family Research Council (FRC) and American Family Association (AFA), stating:

The religious right in America has employed a variety of strategies in its efforts to beat back the increasingly confident gay rights movement. One of those has been defamation. Many of its leaders have engaged in the crudest type of name-calling, describing LGBT people as "perverts" with "filthy habits" who seek to snatch the children of straight parents and "convert" them to gay sex. They have disseminated disparaging "facts" about gays that are simply untrue assertions that are remarkably reminiscent of the way white intellectuals and scientists once wrote about the "bestial" black man and his supposedly threatening sexuality.

Rich's depiction of the hate speech stemming from the anti-gay movement is entirely accurate. Both FRC and AFA have been listed as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center due to their long histories of defaming LGBT people, including peddling the myth allowing for openly gay soldiers would cause a spike in sexual assaults and HIV infections in the military.

Starnes - who acts as Fox News' resident mouthpiece for anti-gay hate groups - chose to depict the email as an assault on Christianity, interviewing several employees of FRC who, not surprisingly, condemned the email:

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told Fox News he was disturbed by the contents of the email.

"It's very disturbing to see where the Obama Administration is taking the military and using it as a laboratory for social experimentation  -- and also as an instrument to fundamentally change the culture," he said. "The message is very clear - if you are a Christian who believes in the Bible, who believes in transcendent truth, there is no place for you in the military."

CNN host Erin Burnett didn't ask NRA board member Ted Nugent a single question about his recent violent remarks concerning gun policy, which included doubling down on his previous claim that he would be "dead or in jail" if Obama was reelected.

Burnett hosted Nugent on the April 11 broadcast of her show Erin Burnett OutFront to discuss pending gun safety legislation.

At no point did Burnett ask Nugent about comments he made during an April 8 interview on NRA News, when he complained that not enough was done to stop Obama's reelection and asked, "When I kick the door down in the enemy's camp, would you help me shoot somebody?" Nugent clarified that his reference to shooting people was "a metaphor" and that he's "not recommending shooting anybody." He also doubled down on his claim last year that he would be "either dead or in jail" in a year if the president was reelected.

Nugent is not a credible voice in the gun policy debate, as evidenced by his long history of inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation about gun violence. Nevertheless, Burnett has attempted to mainstream Nugent before. In February, Burnett's show featured an interview with Nugent where he suggested the government could confiscate firearms, a conspiracy theory that Burnett and CNN reporter Deb Feyerick later treated as a serious argument.

During the April 11 interview, Burnett experienced some of Nugent's inflammatory rhetoric firsthand when Nugent asked Burnett if she would "support my recommendation that we arrest Eric Holder" in order to "stop gun trafficking."