Fox Host Apologizes for ‘Ignorant’ Comment About Gender Identity
Fox & Friends weekend host Clayton Morris offered a rare apology Saturday morning for an offhand joke he made two weeks ago regarding Facebook’s decision to add dozens of new gender options to users’ profile pages. He admitted his comments were “ignorant” and said he would do his best to think before he opens his mouth about such issues in the future.
When he was filling in as host on the Friday, February 14th episode of the Fox morning show, Morris casually joked, “I changed mine to intersex” after co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck reported on the various new gender options. That comment drew criticism, notably from Fusion’s Alicia Menendez, who called the coverage “hilarious” and asked, “Do you not have producers?”
On Saturday morning, at the tail end of another story about gender identity, this time concerning the color of graduation gowns. “Just put yourself in the shoes of those children, though, who have to deal with that,” Morris said to his co-hosts who asked if the school in question was being “over-sensitive” by considering unisex gowns.
“Look, I made a pretty ignorant statement a few weeks ago, we were talking about the Facebook story where they added the bunch of different gender-identifying things,” he continued. “And I made sort of an offhanded comment and I regretted it later because now, ‘Wait a second. There are people who are actually dealing with this and I’m an idiot for saying something stupid like that.’ So before you open your mouth, just think about it a little bit.”
Watch Morris’ original comments followed by today’s apology in the video below, via Fox News:
[h/t Raw Story]
[photo via screengrab]
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