This afternoon, during a rocky 22 minute interview, SiriusXM’s Michelangelo Signorile challenged North Carolina state Sen. James Forrester (R) — the sponsor of the bill to add an amendment to the constitution outlawing same-sex marriage — on his recent claims that people in the gay “lifestyle” live shorter lifespans, exposing the lawmaker’s lack of knowledge and embarrassing him in the process. Forrester, a medical doctor, initially claimed that he learned that gay people live shorter lives from the Atlanta Center for Disease Control, but then began referring Signorile to a book by Fred Turek, a Christian activist who argues that gay people are embracing harmful, “illegitimate” and “changeable” behavior — on par with that of sociopaths, alcoholics, or even gay-bashers. Signorile pressured Forrester on the source and he eventually admitted, “I’m not an expert on everything there.”
The senator also couldn’t explain how same-sex marriage undermined the institution and even threatened to end the interview when Signorile asked if Forrester would be introducing legislation to ban divorce. “I can’t answer all these questions you have,” he conceded:
SIGNORILE: Why don’t you ban divorce, why not?
FORRESTER: That wasn’t my intent of the legislation.
SIGNORILE: Is divorce a good thing? I’ll ask you some yes or nos, how’s that? Divorce a good thing?
FORRESTER: I think I’m going to end this conversation right now because I see you’re completely negative, on the other side, trying to set me up.
Listen to the interview in two parts:
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