Dave Maass

Watch this interview. But, before you do, let me set the stage.

We all appreciate the civil rights milestone that was the election of Barack Obama. But while the O was campaign, Rachel Maddow was already making history as the first openly gay news host to score a prime-time cable news show. The man on her show tonight is Richard Cohen, a former gay man who is now the leader of the dubious “conversion therapy” movement, which purports to help gay people abandon homosexual behavior through Christian counseling.

Here’s what’s at stake in this interview: Cohen’s movement has been tied to a piece of legislation in Uganda that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, being gay and having HIV would be punishable by death and friends and family of gay people who don’t report them to the authorities could case seven years in prison. Lest you forget your history, that is, without hyperbole, Nazi-level oppression.

Tags: cable news, human rights, lgbt rights, rachel maddow, uganda

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