On the morning of the Monday after, many in the blogosphere were asking why Sir Elton John, one of the most famous gay entertainers in the world and a dedicated fighter against AIDS would grace the (fourth) wedding of conservative radio pundit Rush Limbaugh.
The 59-year-old Limbaugh was married to Kathryn Rogers, who is 26 years his junior, in a Hawaiian themed wedding in the Ponce de León ballroom of the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida this weekend. The price tag for the shin-dig was in seven figures.
(Juan Ponce de León was the Spanish conquistador that scoured what became the Sunshine State, looking for the Fountain of Youth. In Rush’s case, the 33 year-old Rogers, whom he met at a charity golf event six years ago, was just the ticket.)
Approximately 400 people attended his nuptials, including such conservative stalwarts as Sean Hannity and Clarence Thomas. Also in attendance representing the other side of the aisle was liberal hothead James Carville, the “Ragin’ Cajun” who recently lambasted Rush’s bête noire (pun intended) Barack Obama for his performance in the BP-Gulf Oil Spill. Carville was accompanied by his wife, conservative commentator Mary Matalin.
Rudolph Giuliani, self-described “America’s Mayor,” self-anointed Hero of 9/11 and an unsuccessful candidate for the 2008 GOP Presidential nomination was in attendance, as was former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN), a second string TV and movie actor who failed to live up to his dream to be the next Ronald Reagan. (Thompson also was an also-ran in 2008 for the Big Brass Ring of the Presidency.)
The most odious guest on the list was Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s former éminence grise who, like Limbaugh, is a world class liar.
Other guests included pro athletes George Brett, the baseball Hall of Famer who toiled for the Kansas City Royals club that formerly employed Limbaugh (as well as Rush’s second wife) in his transition period between being a young disc jockey and a 30-something talk show host, and pro golfer Tom Watson.
Bob Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots, also was there.
Elton John regaled the wedding guests with his music (no reports whether the song list included “Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy” after Rush tied the knot for the fourth time. (There also are no reports whether Rush exchanged the vow “Til death to us part” with his new missus.)
Rush reportedly can only relate to music from before he lost his hearing (which likely was a result of his addiction to hydrocodone and oxycontin, for which he was arrested in 2006). This might explain why he wanted Elton John for his wedding entertainment. (A tape of Rush in his prior manifestation as radio disc jockey “Jeff Christie” from early 1974 features Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting.”)
Sir Elton reportedly was paid a fee of $1 million. Acording to British newspaper The Manchester Guardian, Rush got a deal: the singer’s normal fee to play weddings is $2 million. He reportedly donates the fees to his charity, the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
John was criticized by many for serving a man whom many consider not just a homophobe, but a downright gay-bashing bully. He reportedly praised Rush and his new wife in his remarks in his capacity as the wedding singer.
Fox News’s Megyn Kelly, who was a guest, defended John’s appearance. She is quoted as saying that, “Tolerance and respect were on display at the wedding” in the Los Angeles Times blog “Ministry of Gossip.
John reportedly invited Rush and Kathryn to come visit him and his partner in England.
The question is: Are the critics right? Was Elton John wrong to perform for Rush Limbaugh? The answer pivots on the answer to another question:
Is Rush Limbaugh a Homophobe?
A look at the record indicates that Rush Limbaugh indeed is a homophobe, and that Elton John is a shameless wretch who sold our his honor for the equivalent of 700,000 pounds sterling.
Limbaugh’s bigotry goes beyond mere opposition to gay marriage: After all, Elton himself reportedly is against gay marriage and agrees with Rush that civil unions are the ticket to gay happiness. It is, in the context of the political climate of 2010, a retro attitude.
(John has characterized his partnership to David Furnish, as a marriage, but they actually have a civil partnership, which they consummated on December 21, 2005. At the time, he said publicly that he didn’t want to get married. Their wedding reportedly cost a cool million quid. John has said that he and Furnish renew their vows to each other every week.)
Worse than Rush’s callous statements and his mockery of gays has been his characterization that coverage of the AIDS epidemic in Africa is a bunch of “hype.”
“Everything in Africa’s called AIDS,” The Guardian reported Limbaugh saying on his radio program. “The reason is [that] they get aid money for it. AIDS is the biggest pile of – the biggest pot they throw money into.”
The Guardian also printed Limbaugh’s riff on the non-existence of heterosexual AIDS from a 2007 broadcast.
“There was never any evidence that it was spreading [there], not sexually anyway, and if you said that, then you were guilty of a hate crime,” Limbaugh said.
The conservative pundit went on to blast AIDS education efforts, like those funded by Elton John.
It was time to cough up money for education, and condoms, and cucumbers and all that, and we had rock stars like Bono establish philanthropic careers on the basis of all this, all based on ‘science.’
For Sir Elton, who has done good works in Africa and the rest of the world to alleviate the suffering caused by AIDS, to give his cachet and panache to Limbaugh by performing for him essentially betrays what he stands for.
With a fortune estimated at 175 million pounds sterling, John didn’t need the money.
The Evidence
There is a common list of five bigoted, anti-gay statements that Rush Limbaugh has made that is widely available on the Internet. They are not exaggerated: There is no information on sites such as Snopes.com disputing the validity of his homophobic statements, though there are plenty of other outrageous statements allegedly made by Rush that have been disproven.
Here are the five:
Limbaugh aired a satiric song about gay Congressman Barney Frank, chair of the House Banking Committee, called “Banking Queen” on his radio program; he also mocked Frank and homosexuals during a speech carried by CNN which was censored due to his bigotry;
Limbaugh equated Democrats to male homosexuals, saying that they pander to both African Americans and gays, and will “bend over, grab the ankles, and say, ‘Have your way with me'”;
Limbaugh turned the Mark Foley scandal, in which the conservative Republican congressman from Florida was found to be having made indecent overtures to an underage page, against the Democrats, declaring that they were for gay pederasty: “In their hearts and minds and their crotches, they don’t have any problem with what Foley did. They’ve defended it over the – over the years”;
Limbaugh has belittled openly gay students, ignoring their pain and the trials and tribulations they experience when coming out, claiming that they are “trumpeting” their sexuality and “inviting dissent”;
And last but not least his most infamous homophobic quote:
“When a gay person turns his back on you, it is anything but an insult; it’s an invitation”
Sources:
Civil Rights Movement.com, “CNN Silences Rush Limbaugh’s CPAC Speech During Lisping Gay Slur”
Daily Telegraph (London), Elton sings for Rush Limbaugh
The Guardian (UK), “Elton John performs at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding for $1m”
Los Angeles Times, “Rush Limbaugh gets married, and Elton John is the wedding singer [poll] [updated]”
People Magazine, “Elton John Sings at Rush Limbaugh’s 4th Wedding”
Reference:
- Rush Limbaugh: Official Web Site www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/today.guest.html
- Elton John AIDS Foundation: Official Site www.ejaf.org/
