O'Reilly Admits "Pink Pistols" Story Exaggerated

When Bill O'Reilly of Fox News and "no spin zone" fame featured a report on "gay gangs," the umbrage GLBT people took was business as usual except for one thing: the report crossed a pro-firearms GLBT group called The Pink Pistols.

CQPolitics.com reported on, and The New Yorks Times reprinted, the story, in which an O'Reilly report broadcast last month claimed that 150 "gay gangs" were assaulting people in the Washington, D.C. area.

O'Reilly's source for the story was a Maryland security consultant, Rod Wheeler, who is also a former Washignton, D.C. police officer, according to the CQ story.

Wheeler said on the show that some of the gay gangs toted 9 mm. Glocks and referred to themsleves as "the pink pistol packing group."

The report, with sensational and lurid claims of "young girls" being "raped" and "gay gangs" running wild in the nation's capitol, were enough to get the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) to urge its membership to demand the O'Reilly honor his "no spin zone" motto and make an on-air retraction, or else present concrete facts for the claims made on air.

The Southern Poverty Law Center also became involved, rebutting the claims made on O'Reilly's program in a meticulus, point-by-point fashion.

But it was a group of about 10,000 gay and lesbian gun-rights enthusiasts who might have had the most impact: called The Pink Pistols, the group is a GLBT advocacy organization supporting what they view as their Second Amendment rights to bear arms.

The Pink Pistols are not happy at having the name of their organization dragged through the mud in what they see as a sensationalistic and gratuituous manner.

Bloggers picked up on the story; calls and emails flooded O'Reilly's show; and in the end, O'Reilly took the highly unusual step (for him) of admitting that the story may have been exaggerated, although in an on-air interview with Rashad Robinson, a GLAAD spokesman, O'Reilly stuck to the general claim that, "It's a valid story," saying that lesbian gangs had been reported as involved in violent attacks in several cities, including New York, Philadelphia, and Memphis.

However, "Is it out of control? No," said O'Reilly. "I'm not in fear of the lesbians beating me up tonight."

Wheeler posted a "clarification and apology" on his web site, saying he had not intended to suggest that the Pink Pistols were actually participating in violent attacks. Wheeler also said that the one hundred and fifty gangs he had spoken of were not meant to refer to 150 lesbian gangs, but rather the approximately 150 gangs that exist in the D.C. area.

Wheeler did acknowledge that saying there was a "national epidemic" of such gangs was an overstatement, though he insisted that there were indeed lesbian gangs weilding pink pistols. Wrote Wheeler, "This is not something I made up."

Wheeler also took pains to say that he had no personal animus toward lesbians. "They think I was saying lesbians are bad people. I feel awful about it," he wrote.

Gwen Patton, spokesperson for the Pink Pistols, said, "I think there was a great deal of sensationalizing and agenda-driving going on here."

Continued Patton, "Perhaps Mr. Wheeler's own personal feelings regarding the gay and lesbian community entered into it." Besides, said Patton, the pistols used by the group are the same clor as any other pistol; the reference to pink pistols is symbolic. "It's pink as in the pink triangle," Patton specified.

GLAAD spokesperson Rashad Robinson said,"The story is a complete and total fabrication, and [O'Reilly] still has failed to offer one shred of evidence as to why it's legitimate news."

However, Rashad said, "It's important to recognize that O'Reilly rarely admits to exaggerating a story and promising to do better next time."