Years-old comments that may or may not have been taken out of context regarding pedophilia have come back to haunt former Breitbart News editor-at-large Milo Yiannopoulos, who quit his job over the controversy.
The “gay conservative” journalist has been enraging liberals for weeks with his tour of college campuses. But it was the emergence of those comments that led to his losing a book deal with Simon & Schuster and being “disinvited” to speak at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
It’s fair to say this is definitely a low point in Milo’s life. In a Facebook post Wednesday night about the situation, Dr. Lance Wallnau says Christians could have responded better to the controversy.
In sharing a Front Page Magazine article in which Freedom Center founder David Horowitz blasted the American Conservative Union’s decision to not have Milo speak at CPAC, Wallnau offered a suggestion for those standing in judgment over the journalist:
For those of you tracking with this story, there is a powerful young man named Milo who is a gay conservative. Forget for the moment that he is gay and not a Christian, he did the unthinkable—he captured the attention and interest of a college-age generation and challenged the intolerance of the left regarding freedom of speech. They did what they always do, “opposition research” and put together an edited sound bite where Milo discusses his first sexual encounter with a priest when he was 13. The quote was made to sound like an endorsement for pedophilia. Milo retracted that, but the damage was done. He did a press conference today on his FB page which reveals his heart on the matter.
He says:
“I am a gay man, and a child abuse victim. I would like to restate my utter disgust at adults who sexually abuse minors. I am horrified by pedophilia and I have devoted large portions of my career as a journalist to exposing child abusers. I’ve outed three of them, in fact—three more than most of my critics. And I’ve repeatedly expressed disgust at pedophilia in my feature and opinion writing. My professional record is very clear.
“But I do understand that these videos, even though some of them are edited deceptively, paint a different picture.”
“I’m partly to blame. My own experiences as a victim led me to believe I could say anything I wanted to on this subject, no matter how outrageous. But I understand that my usual blend of British sarcasm, provocation and gallows humor might have come across as flippancy, a lack of care for other victims or, worse, ‘advocacy.’ I deeply regret that. People deal with things from their past in different ways.”
Out of courtesy to Breitbart, he has severed their relationship, Simon and Schuster canceled his book, and Conservatives at CPAC canceled him as a speaker. It has been the toughest 48 hours of his life.
Like I wrote in my book, God’s Chaos Candidate the opportune moment for Ted Cruz to minister to Donald Trump was before the RNC Convention when he could have gone with his wife to Trump and Melania and shared his personal offense and sorted it out—even prayed. Likewise now is the propitious time for evangelical conservatives at CPAC to be a “safe place” for a beaten-up young man. Instead, they have thrown him under the bus.
May God send the right believer to cross his path and give him the kind of embrace and advice that Steve Bannon gave to Andrew Breitbart when he needed a father to guide his calling. And let’s keep praying for him.
Wallnau then led an online prayer for Milo. {eoa}
