Davin Clemons/Facebook
Talk show host Thaddeus Matthews ratcheted up his attack of a Memphis City Council candidate in another homophobic scree on his podcast.
On his show Monday, Thaddeus Matthews targeted Davin Clemons, who is running for the council’s District 6 seat. If he wins, Clemons will be the council’s first openly gay member.
On his show Wednesday and Thursday, Matthews unleashed a hateful torrent against Clemons, the Memphis Police Department’s LGBTQ liaison.
The LGBTQ Victory Fund, a national organization dedicated to electing LGBTQ leaders to public office, has been monitoring Matthews’ attacks on Clemons closely.
The group said that during the show Matthews repeatedly calls Clemons a “wife.”
“The man running for office is the wife, right?” Matthews asks someone off-screen.
Matthews’ language gets more explicit as his show wears on. In an exchange with an irate caller, Matthews says, “You a dick-in-the-ass bitch. Now, be quiet.”
“Are you fucking, uh, pardon me, are you screwing Davin Clemons? You seem concerned,” Matthews said to another caller. “I’m going to hang up on you because you won’t listen. That’s what you faggots do. You like to run your damn mouth.”
Matthews goes on to attack Clemons’ mother, his husband, and the “gay agenda.”
Much later in the show, Matthews notes that his words are “not an attack on homosexuals.”
The LGBTQ Victory Fund compiled Matthews homophobic statements here. This week, they called Matthews’ earlier attack on Clemons “cringe-worthy” and “insidious.”
This year is not, of course, the first time Matthews has spoken out against homosexuals. In 2011, he disparaged then-city-council-candidate Lee Harris with homophobic slurs.
“Is Lee Harris a faggot?” Matthews asked his listeners in 2011.
