Acceptance

On May 28, speaking on his Sacramento morning radio show, Rob Williams called transgender people "freaks" with "mental disorders" and claimed that the "transgender movement" is phony. A co-host, Arnie States, said, "If my son, God forbid, if my son put on a pair of high heels, I would probably hit him with one of my shoes. I would throw a shoe at him."

Myself, I'm gay, not trans, but this is infuriating all the same.

When I first read about this, I wanted to write something to express my anger and frustration. I wanted to say that I'd like Williams to be forced into estrogen treatments and castrated, so he'd know what it's like to be a male on the inside-- the weak in mind, despicable, pathetic male that he already is --and female on the outside. As I read on, though, I learned that my anger was unnecessary.

At first, these two defended their comments, saying they were "jokes" and that they have the right to their opinions. Their tune took a very different note after losing huge sponsors, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Carl's Jr., Nissan North America, Verizon, and more.

Currently on the show's homepage, you will find a letter from Rob Williams:

To our loyal Rob, Arnie and Dawn followers,

We have failed you. As a show, as people, as broadcasters, we have simply failed on almost every level.

We presented our opinions on a very sensitive subject in a hateful, childish and crude fashion; and then, given the opportunity to retract those remarks, we defended them.

Since then, you, our loyal listeners, have made it clear to us that we went too far. The response has been overwhelming. None of you said that we couldn’t have opinions, yet so many of you said that the way we gave them crossed the line. Further, you said that our attempt to mask our comments as “jokes that would be understood by our audience,” was unacceptable. I would say now that it was worse than that, it was cowardly. You have made that clear.

We have reached out to various groups and asked for a chance to make this right; to respond, with their participation, to the education that our audience has provided us. That opportunity has been graciously granted this Thursday morning, June 11th. at 7:30 a.m.

The word apology appears no where in this letter for a reason. We already hid from doing the right thing once and we’re not going to make that mistake again. Apologizing in a written, posted statement is a form of cowardice. We will say what needs to be said this Thursday.

On a final, personal note, as the leader and owner of the show, I have made the decision that we need to refrain from broadcasting new episodes until we can address this on Thursday. We will return to the air at 7:30 a.m. June 11th.

Rob Williams
Rob, Arnie and Dawn

It's entirely possible, and in my opinion likely, that this letter wasn't even written by Rob Williams, and he simply acquiesced to its publishing to save his show and job. And yes, it's disappointing that he ever thought like this in the first place.

Still, this is a heartening indicator of where we are today. With so much bad news, it's nice to see that there is some intolerance for intolerance. The fact that these corporations decided it was important for public relations to pull advertising from this station demonstrates that this kind of hate speech is unacceptable.

The third co-host, Dawn Rossi, stood up for transgender people.