In the wake of the media and Internet firestorm which followed a call to action by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and coverage in The Huffington Post, which broke this story nationally, ten major American corporate advertisers have pulled their accounts from Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning on KRXQ 98.55 in Sacramento.
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On the day in question, two of the show's three hosts, Rob Williams and Arnie States, spent approximately thirty minutes of the segment berating transgender children as "idiots," "freaks," and "freaks of nature," who were "just out for attention." They compared the children to "fat bastard kids on Maury" who just needed to be put in their places with verbal abuse and even physical punishment if necessary. States said that if he had a male child who put on a pair of high heels, he would discipline him by striking the little boy with his own shoe
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But this isn't the first time that States and Williams have crossed the line into controversy on KRXQ by using small children as thematic set-pieces.
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The skit is presented as a humor gag clearly meant to titillate, according the the FCC.
The report reads in part:
The September 13, 2002 segment involved one of the program hosts playing the role of a young boy describing how his father wanted to take photographs of him in the nude and show the youngster his erect penis. Although the segment employed euphemisms ("Daddy's going to take me to a restaurant `cause he wants to take pictures of me in my birthday suit. Daddy's giving me a submarine. He says he's giving me something long, hard, and full of seaman."), the sexual import of the material is unmistakable. Although the segment was relatively brief, there is no question that its purpose was to shock and titillate, and is similar to other patently offensive material involving graphic references to sexual activity with children, which were found to be indecent. Under these circumstances, we need not find that the sexual references were repeated at length in order to find that the material is patently offensive. As noted in the Indecency Policy Statement, broadcasting references to sexual activities with children, even if relatively fleeting, may be found indecent where, as here, other factors contribute to a finding of patent offensiveness.
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"I have another complaint pending against them with the FCC," Peake says. "They did a segment about gays having blood on their knees from being bent over on the floor. And one about a 'pink taco,'" he adds, clearly revolted by the grotesque sexual innuendo, "where Arnie is referring to a little six year old girl, saying she ought to go trick-or-treating as 'a pink taco.'"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rowe/on-air-abuse-of-transgede_b_212121.htmlI think kids should be off limits with this kind of innuendo. There is a 1st amendment, but I would draw the line here on an admittedly slippery slope.
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