Buzzfeed Engages in Self-Reflexive Media Malpractice with Headline 'Rand Paul Doesn't Believe in the Concept of Gay Rights'
Paul Speaks of Basic Individual Rights, Slammed for Allegedly Not Believing in "Behavioral Rights."
Buzzfeed goes for a very weak and misleading attack on Rand Paul today, completely distorting his meaning to any typical reader in both headline and text: "Rand Paul Doesn't Believe in the Concept of Gay Rights."
They got this scoop, no less, in "a videotaped interview that has received little attention since it was recorded in 2013!" (YouTubers seeking to up your channel's hits, start larding it with old Rand Paul video, since an army of oppo journalists and candidates will be watching til their eyes fall out.)
Paul, naturally, went on to say how of course there should be no legal punishment for beating and murdering gays and stealing their property, right? I mean, he doesn't believe in gay rights!
Here's what Paul started the interview clip with:
"I'm for rights for individuals, but I'm not for judging individuals based on their behavior" before later on stumbling into the gotcha phrase the article quotes: "I don't think I've ever used the word gay rights, because I don't really believe in rights based on your behavior."
That can't be understood outside of both the context of his initial statement, and the general context of libertarian-ish thinking in which we all as humans have an equal set of rights, and no particular special ones based on status or on the specifics of what we choose to do.
To the libertarian minded—and this certainly provided no proof Rand Paul isn't libertarian-minded in this respect—part of individual rights is the legal right to indulge in any behavior that isn't directly damaging others rights or property, so the Buzzfeed writer disingenuously stumbling on to wonder what other behaviors have no rights protection is barking up the wrong tree and deliberately misunderstanding Paul:
But it's unclear how far—and to whom—Paul extends the argument that rights cannot be defined by behavior.
Practicing religion, for example, is a behavior enshrined as a primary American right. Free speech is behavior protected by the Bill of Rights…
Ironically, this headline that is sweeping the globe, "Rand Paul Doesn't Believe in the Concept of Gay Rights," is meta-criticized in the very clip the article is based on, in which Paul muses that "the problem of bad journalism sometimes…is actually the titles to stories" in which "men and women putting headlines on sometimes put inflammatory stuff on there."
Here's the video, you can listen for yourself, though Buzzfeed is certainly counting on most readers not bothering to do so:
