Matt Slick "How the Daily Show misrepresented me"
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June 17, 2013 by Matt Slick
For those who actually believed what the Daily Show presented (a comedy show that people take seriously?) I have three quick comments.
- First, please consider reading this article and find out how the Daily Show misrepresented me, in direct contradiction to what they said they would do.
- Second, they edited me in such a way as to get me to say the opposite of what I actually said.
- Third, below is the actual transcript of what I said. It is taken from my audio recording.
In May, 2013, I was contacted by The Daily Show. It is a national TV program on the Comedy Central Network. Sometimes they do more serious issues, and it was in this light that they contacted me and asked if they could interview me regarding homosexuality and anti-Christian bias in the media. I told them I was not interested in being promoted as a wacko who they could mock. I was assured several times that mocking me and making me look bad was not their intent. I remember being very concerned about this but I was repeatedly reassured by Miles, the producer, that they weren't intending to misrepresent me. Instead, it was about anti-Christian bias in the media regarding homosexuality. I first spoke to a nice woman named Juliet and then ended up talking to the producer, Miles (an atheist), for a total of three different phone calls (a fourth to confirm I'd do it). I repeatedly told them about my concern. Miles assured me more than once over the phone that their intent was not to mock, but to represent the Christian view accurately. So, I prayed about it for two days, spoke to my pastor and a few friends, and then decided to go ahead and take a chance. I figured that if I could give competent, biblically based answers, then that would be okay. Also, I reasoned that at the very least it would be exposure for CARM. So, I decided to do it and I went to New York on a Tuesday and flew back on a Wednesday.
What did they do? They said I was a pastor when I specifically told them I was not. They didn't put up my ministry name and info which I gave at the beginning of the interview as they requested. I told them that I am the Founder and President of the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, www.carm.org). I told them I was not a pastor. What did they do? They said I was a pastor and radio host (I do a radio show, too), and omitted giving the ministry name? Why do you think? I believe it is because they didn't want my site promoted at all. Yep, no media bias there.
They proved to me and many others that the media bias against Christians is alive and well.
1.5 hours became almost 3They scheduled me for one and a half hours of interviewing. I never met the host of the show, Jon Stewart. Instead, I spent three hours with Samantha Bee. Why three hours instead of one and a half? I think it was because they couldn't get out of me what they were hoping for. So, I fielded questions and tried to give compassionate, intelligent, and biblical answers.
More than once during our taping, I asked Samantha Bee some questions and offered some basic apologetics. I didn't get too deep into it, but I could tell that she really had no clue what Christianity really taught, and her sympathy for the homosexual cause was quite evident (no offense meant, Sam 1). For example, consider the following representative dialogue. She asked me if I felt persecuted as a Christian. I told her that I did to some extent, in that there was a general anti-Christian feeling in our culture and especially in the media. Homosexuals are portrayed very favorably and Christians are almost always portrayed negatively. She asked me how I would like things to be different. I told her I just want Christians to be fairly represented in the media, and not misrepresented and attacked all the time, so they can freely say what they want to say without being ridiculed and mocked - the same as anyone else. She then came back and said (and I paraphrase) "So, you want to be able to tell homosexuals they are going to hell." I replied with (and I paraphrase again), "No, that's not it. We want to be able to tell people, homosexuals, anybody, everybody, that they need Jesus in order to escape the judgment of God. All sinners need to find Christ." I told her it wasn't that we wanted to focus on homosexuals. Instead, we have a message that all people need to hear - homosexuals, adulterers, liars, thieves, moms, dads, etc. - anybody and everybody (myself included) that Jesus Christ, who is God in flesh, died on the cross for our sins, and that by trusting him and what he did there, they can be forgiven of all their sins. I was quite clear in this message, which I told her several times, but more than once in the interview she would repeat that I wanted to be able to freely tell homosexuals that they are going to hell. I remember once specifically telling her that she had misrepresented me again, and that I was not saying what she said I was saying. I was calm, compassionate, and I did my best to represent Christ properly.
Homosexual persecution of heterosexuals and the Audio Transcript.Now, please remember that I was told by The Daily Show representatives that the topic was about media bias against Christians as it relates to homosexuality, not homosexual violence on heterosexuals. Therefore, I didn't have my documentation there to show how Christians are being persecuted. I wasn't prepared for everything, but now I can let it be known, that I taped the interview (New York has single party consent and leeway for journalists is broad). I am now releasing the transcript.
- Samantha: "Are there straight people who've been beaten up by gay people?"
- Matt: "Yes."
- Samantha: "Okay, talk to me about that." "Does that happen because...?
- Matt: "Of course, it happens in the homosexual community in that the homosexuals are beat up and that's publicized. Have you heard of the Jesse Durgin case in 1999." [I got his name wrong. It is Jesse Dirkhising. You can see what happened here.]
- Samantha: "Yeah, 1999."
- Matt: "Well, for example, I'll just use him as an example."
- Samantha: "Well, that was over ten years ago."
- Matt: "Yeah, but it did happen. He was thirteen years old. And two homosexuals drugged him, raped him and he died. And it was, there was fecal matter on his body, he was sodomized with instruments, um, he was killed. And the two men were brought to justice and they're in jail. But these kinds of events, because, dare I say they're not exactly politically correct are not publicized very well. If there was an outcry, then why is this not been covered."
- Samantha: "Is that the same as bullying or is that...".
- Matt: "Murder? The same as bullying?"
- Samantha: "Is that......separate, was that, do you think he was persecuted by them in a bullying way or just singled out and murdered for other reasons? Was he singled out because he was a Christian?
- Matt: "No he was just a 13 year old boy."
- Samantha: "Okay, so it wasn't really gay on straight bullying." "It wasn't really gay...."
- Matt: "I don't know about bullying where homosexuals go out and find straights to beat up. I'm sure it happens though. Just as I'm sure it happens where straights go out and look for homosexuals to beat up. Both are wrong. Just because someone's homosexual doesn't mean they're not capable of violence. Just because they're homosexual doesn't give them carte blanche to say everything's right or good or they're not bad like anybody else. They're normal like anybody else in so many ways just like anybody else why wouldn't they be people who actually do some bad things and wrong things unless they're being portrayed on t.v. and in the media as just being saints as they often are."
What they edited and put on TV was this:
- Matt: "The reverse happens as well [camera angle change] where homosexuals go out and find straights to beat up."
Now notice what happened on the show. They had me saying, "The reverse happens as well [camera angle change] where homosexuals go out and find straights to beat up." That is not what I said. I said "I don't know about bullying where homosexuals go out and find straights to beat up". But they made it look like I was saying that there are groups of homosexuals who go looking for heterosexuals to attack as though that is some normal behavior of homosexuals. This was a blatant misrepresentation.
- I requested a copy of the interview from The Daily Show (on 6/19/2013) but was denied. On 6/20/2013, I was told that they do not send out copies of their recordings, so I'm not able to verify what they said using their own recording.
I also remember telling The Daily Show that I believe the great majority of homosexuals are peace-loving people who don't want to hurt anybody, but that there have been cases of homosexuals doing some very bad things to heterosexuals, yet these are not mentioned in the media because there is a definite pro-homosexual bias. I told them about the Jesse Dirkhising case as an example, where two homosexual men tied up, drugged, and raped a 14-year old boy who died, and how the media hardly mentioned it at all (Jesse was not homosexual). 2 I said that if it had been the other way around, the media would have maximized the publicity for its pro-homosexual leanings. I also mentioned in the interview how Christians regularly contact me via CARM and tell me they are feeling more and more intimidated about sharing their faith - everywhere. I mentioned to them how in the past 2 to 3 years, Christians have increasingly contacted me asking how to respond to certain things said at work that are against Christians, at family gatherings, etc., and I try and give advice. Without a doubt, there is an anti-Christian bias in culture, and especially in the media. The hate speech is aimed at us more and more. It has begun with subtlety but is gaining momentum, and I fear it will somehow be legitimized in society in the future. After all, first you demonize a group, then you can turn against them. It is already happening here in America, and the secular realm wants Christianity marginalized and quieted. But it is not stopping there. Christians are being forced via litigation to violate their consciences or face legal penalties.
Are Christians Persecuted for Their Views on Homosexuality? Yes, they are.Since The Daily Show aired, I've been called a moron, a bigot, homophobe, closet case, out-of-touch Christian, and some other things I can't repeat here. There are now discussion threads about what I said, and from what I've seen of them, nothing is favorable. The Huffington Post (on 6/18/2013) had an article on the front page saying "'Daily Show' skewers evangelical's claim that gays bully Christians," and it has interviewed the homosexual (Todd Clayton, a Huffington Post blogger) who appeared on The Daily Show after me, but they have not contacted me for any "equal time follow up". Now, why do you suppose that is? They know how to reach me.
On the Huffington Post article Mr. Clayton said,
"The motivation ... was to expose the fallacy [of anti-LGBT Christians claiming to be victims of bullying]," Clayton told HuffPost in an email. "In a country where every president has identified as Christian, where churches are ubiquitous, where Islamophobia is an enterprise, Christianity is hopeless[ly] tied to privilege and power. For Christians to claim they are victims of bullying is asinine." 3
By the way, Huffington Post, did you contact The Daily Show, you know, the comedy network that makes people look like idiots via editing, to see if what I said is "really" what I said in context? I'm sure you didn't.
Anyway, what actually happened is quite different from what I was told by The Daily Show representatives - that the piece (my part, anyway) was about the anti-Christian bias seen in the media regarding homosexuality. That is what I prepared for. Why the disparity? Could we say there really is, gasp, an anti-Christian bias in the media? Is that actually possible? Liberals, what do you think?
To continue, the coverage on the Huffington Post is negative about me, as are all the comments that I've read. In fact, the Huffington Post, in a monumental display of media bias, posted a link to a pro-homosexual website (the advocate) at the bottom of their article on me. 4 The article, of course, is another hit piece. Now, to the Huff's credit, they did post a link to www.carm.org/matt-slick.
In all, I've received a great deal of mockery, condemnation and insults... Just as I said was the case! They are proving my point that the media is biased against Christians - the very thing The Daily Show said they wanted to interview me about, yet that is NOT what was promoted. Can we say "misrepresentation"?
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