Iowa Independent: Mickelson defends HIV/AIDS comments after Clear Channel rebuke
From the Iowa Independent:
After being publicly rebuked by his employers two weeks ago, WHO-AM radio host Jan Mickelson defended his controversial statements about HIV/AIDS, saying Tuesday that the backlash is all about politics.
“You’re dealing with a religious cult and they’re advancing their worldview,” Mickelson said of the “homosexual lobby.” “And they’re using politics to do it.”
Mickelson stirred controversy late last month while discussing the Republican Party of Iowa’s decision to distance itself from a legislative candidate who made anti-gay remarks on his Facebook page. GOP Chairman Matt Strawn said in his statement that “HIV/AIDS doesn’t discriminate,” a point Mickelson strongly disagreed with. Mickelson said the disease discriminates against people who engage in “stupid behavior,” and since homosexuality is a “sexual disorder” that violates natural law, it “isn’t rocket science” to conclude AIDS discriminates against homosexuals.
Mickelson’s employer, Clear Channel Communications Inc., responded by publicly rebuking Mickelson’s statements in a statement read on air just before his program. Later that week, state Sen. Matt McCoy announced that he was organizing a boycott of Mickelson’s sponsors, saying local companies, “shouldn’t have a chief bigot as their spokesperson.”
After a caller brought up McCoy’s boycott on Tuesday’s show, Mickelson defended his original statements.
All I did was read the CDC reports on the nature of the issue and it suggested that it is a lifestyle disease, and certain lifestyles are unhealthy. This is not about what I said, however. This has nothing to do with the content of what I said that day. And you don’t have to take my word for it. This is just a tactic in the culture war.
I was told directly by e-mailers who were agreeing with Matt McCoy and One Iowa, I was told by e-mails and people who were just vilifying me, and also voice mails that were doing the same in just nasty, nasty language, and here’s what they said: “You try to take out our judges, we’re going to take you out.”
Mickelson is a supporter of the effort to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices over the court’s ruling that effectively legalized same-sex marriage.
