Anchor Erica Hill gave actress Jane Lynch a platform on Tuesday's CBS
This Morning to laud President Obama's flip-flop on same-sex "marriage."
Hill set it up by citing a recent Tweet from the open homosexual: "You weighed in...on Twitter actually and you thanked him [Obama] for the dignity that those words brought you." Lynch gushed, "I really felt it.....It really moved me. It touched me." [audio available here ]
Obama supporter and co-anchor Gayle King herself waxed ecstatic over
the presidential announcement in her follow-up question to Lynch: "Did you think, he's talking to us?"
King also complimented the television personality over her new book,
and singled out a detail in it about the "wife" of the actress: "I love,
in the book, that you actually have the picture of when you two first
met."
The morning show put the actress's Tweet on the screen as Hill brought
up the subject: "Pretty darn happy today. Thanks Mr President, for
supporting the dignity of my family and so many others!" Lynch sang the
President her praises in reply, and added to it when King followed up
with her beyond sympathetic question: "I kind of look at it as just
another issue. I take it a little personally, but- you know, this should
change. But it felt, like I saw Andrew Sullivan on the Chris Matthews
Show, he started to cry, when he was talking about it."
Hill even asked about the response of Lynch's adoptive daughter to Obama's announcement:
HILL: Did your daughter have any reaction?
LYNCH: No, not really. You know, my daughter is unquestioning about
this stuff, you know? And she's growing up in Los Angeles- we're teeming
with gay people and straight people and-
KING: For her, this is our family.
LYNCH: This- you know, we are living the TV show 'Modern Family.' You know, we've got every stripe of family, you know, in our neighborhood.
Earlier in the interview, King enthusiastically asked her guest about how she met her "wife":
KING: We have to talk about your wife, Lara [Embry]....because I love, in the book, that you actually have the picture of when you two first met.....You
were at a charity- talk about 'happy accidents'- because, you know,
she's there and you're there. And she was a charity winner. She had won
something.
LYNCH: Yeah. She won an award....She was being honored from the
National Center for Lesbian Rights for the work she had done in Florida
for gay adoptions, and I was giving an award to Ilene Chaiken, who was
the creator of "The L Word" [the TV show]. And so, we've- all
get together and have our portraits taken, and they said, would you two
like to take a picture together? Well, Lara actually said, I want to
take a picture with her, which was very nice. (Hill and King laugh) And
we yucked it up for the camera and I said to her- and I was immediately
smitten- and I said, we'll get to tell our children ten years from now- very presumptive of me- that this is the moment we met. And indeed....I have a child now, as a result of this marriage.
The transcript of the relevant portion of Erica Hill and Gayle King's
interview of Jane Lynch on Tuesday's CBS This Morning, starting at the
43 minutes into the 8 am Eastern hour mark:
GAYLE KING: We have to talk about your wife, Lara [Embry]-
JANE LYNCH: Yeah-
KING: Because I love, in the book, that you actually have the picture of when you two first met.
LYNCH: Yes.
KING: You were at a charity- talk about 'happy accidents'- because, you
know, she's there and you're there. And she was a charity winner. She
had won something.
LYNCH: Yeah. She won an award-
KING: She was being honored-
LYNCH: She was being honored from the National Center for Lesbian
Rights for the work she had done in Florida for gay adoptions, and I was
giving an award to Ilene Chaiken, who was the creator of "The L Word"
[the TV show]. And so, we've- all get together and have our portraits
taken, and they said, would you two like to take a picture together?
Well, Lara actually said, I want to take a picture with her, which was
very nice. (Hill and King laugh) And we yucked it up for the camera and I
said to her- and I was immediately smitten- and I said, we'll get to
tell our children ten years from now- very presumptive of me- that this
is the moment we met. And indeed-
ERICA HILL: In fact, you can tell them in a couple of years-
LYNCH: And I have a child now, as a result of this marriage.
KING: Listen, you said you were a dog person. You never-
LYNCH: I'm a dog person! I don't like kids.
HILL: You weighed in on President Obama weighing in on same-sex
marriage, on Twitter actually, and you thanked him for the dignity that
those words brought you.
LYNCH: Brought to our family- yeah. It's interesting. I don't take
this- the debate about gay rights personally- sometimes. I kind of see
it objectively.
KING: You don't?
[CBS News Graphic: "Jane Lynch: @jamemarielynch: Pretty darn happy
today. Thanks Mr President, for supporting the dignity of my family and
so many others!]
LYNCH: No, and I took this really- I really felt it. I really felt when
he, the President, came out and said, you know, I believe that gay
people should be able to marry each other. I think it's a right they
should have as well. And, all of a sudden, I took that- I- it really
moved me. It touched me.
KING: Did you think, he's talking to us?
LYNCH: Yeah! And I really- I rarely do that. I kind of look at it as
just another issue. I take it a little personally, but- you know, this
should change. But it felt, like I saw Andrew Sullivan on the Chris
Matthews Show, he started to cry, when he was talking about it.
HILL: Did your daughter have any reaction?
LYNCH: No, not really. You know, my daughter is unquestioning about
this stuff, you know? And she's growing up in Los Angeles- we're teeming
with gay people and straight people and-
KING: For her, this is our family.
LYNCH: This- you know, we are living the TV show 'Modern Family.' You
know, we've got every stripe of family, you know, in our neighborhood.
— Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.
