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Milo Yiannopoulos’s Pedophilia Comments Cost Him CPAC Role and Book Deal
LINK: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/20/us/politics/cpac-milo-yiannopoulos.html?_r=0
WASHINGTON — Milo Yiannopoulos, the provocateur and Breitbart News editor, was under pressure on several fronts Monday after the publication of a video in which he condones sexual relations with boys as young as 13 and laughs off the seriousness of pedophilia by Roman Catholic priests.
The organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference rescinded their invitation for him to speak later this week. Simon & Schuster said it was canceling publication of his latest book, “Dangerous.” And there were calls online for Breitbart to sever ties with him.
The episode, which unraveled quickly online over the weekend, put many conservatives in a deeply uncomfortable position. They have long defended Mr. Yiannopoulos’s attention-seeking stunts and racially charged antics on the grounds that the left had tried to hypocritically censor his right to free speech.
But endorsing pedophilia, it seemed, was more than they could tolerate. The board of the American Conservative Union, which includes veterans of the conservative movement like Grover Norquist and Morton Blackwell, made the decision to revoke Mr. Yiannopoulos’s speaking slot and condemn his comments on Monday.
“We initially extended the invitation knowing that the free speech issue on college campuses is a battlefield where we need brave, conservative standard-bearers,” Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, said in a written statement.
Regarding Mr. Yiannopoulos’s comments, Mr. Schlapp called them “disturbing” and said his explanation of them was insufficient.
Mr. Yiannopoulos is a marquee contributor to Breitbart News, where he serves as senior editor and has amassed a fan base for his stunts and often-outrageous statements. But by Monday afternoon, his future at the website was being hotly debated by top management.
One Breitbart journalist, who requested anonymity to describe private deliberations, described divisions in the newsroom over whether Mr. Yiannopoulos could stay on. There was some consensus among staff members that his remarks were more extreme than his usual speech, the journalist said, and executives were discussing by telephone whether his apology was enough to preserve his position at the site.
A Breitbart representative declined to comment.
After the video leaked on Twitter from a conservative group called the Reagan Battalion, Mr. Yiannopoulos denied that he had ever condoned child sexual abuse, noting that he was a victim himself as he blamed his “British sarcasm” and “deceptive editing” for leading to a misunderstanding.
But in the tape, the fast-talking polemicist is clear that he has no problem with older men abusing children as young as 13, which he then conflates with relationships between older and younger gay men who are of consenting age.
“No, no, no. You’re misunderstanding what pedophilia means,” Mr. Yiannopoulos says on the tape, in which he is talking to radio hosts in a video chat. “Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13 years old who is sexually mature. Pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty,” he adds, dismissing the fact that 13-year-olds are children.
The notion of consent, he says, is “arbitrary and oppressive.”
Conservatives reacted with near unanimous disgust at the comments. Some expressed bewilderment that conference organizers would extend an invitation to Mr. Yiannopoulos in the first place, given his history of statements that have been offensive to blacks, Muslims and generally pushed the bounds of decency. Twitter has banned him.
“Colossal misjudgment,” Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, wrote on Twitter. “Now CPAC has put itself in the role of ‘censor.’ And for what? Some clicks and headlines?”
Guy Benson, the writer and radio host, who also happens to be gay, wrote on Twitter that Mr. Yiannopoulos seemed to have been “designed in a laboratory in order to perpetuate some of the ugliest stereotypes about gays and conservatives.”
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