The Ezra Klein-led Vox.com announced another round of new hires on Wednesday, among them an openly gay writer who was tapped to serve as the fledgling outlet’s writing fellow.
The hiring of Brandon Ambrosino, whose work has previously appeared in Time and The Atlantic, was greeted with mostly congratulatory messages on Twitter.
But that’s not all! meet our newest writing fellow: @BrandonAmbro! https://t.co/xfj2jh1dw6
— Vox (@voxdotcom) March 12, 2014
While several conservatives have questioned whether Klein’s team would have room for any voices on the right, the most blistering criticism thus far has been directed at the hire of Ambrosino — and from a leading liberal outlet, no less.
Hours after the hire was announced, a post by Media Matters for America declared Ambrosino to be “Homophobes’ Favorite Gay Writer.”
The post, written by MMFA’s Luke Brinker, cited Ambrosino’s published work (and tweets) as evidence that one of Vox’s latest hires is “a gay man who has made a name for himself by suggesting that being gay is a choice and whitewashing anti-gay bigotry and discrimination.”
Brinker directed readers to a piece from last year in which Ambrosino detailed his time at Liberty University, founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Here’s what Ambrosino wrote about the notoriously anti-gay televangelist:
When I think of Jerry Falwell, I don’t think about him the way Bill Maher does. I think about the man who would wear a huge Blue Afro wig to our school games, or the man who slid down a waterslide in his suit, or the man who would allow himself to be mocked during our coffeehouse shows. I think about the man who reminded us every time he addressed our student body that God loved us, that he loved us, and that he was always available if ever we needed him.
Then there was an Ambrosino piece from December on the firestorm surrounding “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson (title: “The Duck Dynasty Fiasco Says More About Our Bigotry Than Phil’s”). Brinker ripped Ambrosino rushing to “to Robertson’s defense.”
Brinker also highlighted an Ambrosino tweet from 2012 in which he called a New York Times story on gay-conversion therapy to be “interesting.”
Ambrosino’s “gay contrarianism,” Brinker noted, has earned him plaudits from the likes of Glenn Beck and Breitbart News.
Neither Ambrosino nor Klein responded to TPM’s request for comment.
