Out Magazine, the country’s largest LGBT monthly publication, is under fire Wednesday for featuring a profile article on Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos.
The story, titled “Send In the Clown: Internet Supervillain Milo Doesn’t Care That You Hate Him,” by Chadwick Moore (featuring Yiannopoulos dressed as a clown), describes the openly-gay Breitbart editor as an “alt-right crusader” and “professional mischief maker and provocateur.”
That apparently didn’t sit well with some in the LGBT community, who lashed out at the publication on Twitter.
“Out magazine: Milo Yiannopoulos is not a white supremacist… he’s an alt-right super villain who is très trendy,” tweeted gay writer Oscar Reymundo.
Gay blogger Jon Adams tweeted, “OUT Magazine really equated Milo Yiannopoulos’ white supremacist bullshit to being an “internet super villain” like he’s The Riddler.”
Yiannopoulos was recently banned from Twitter for instigating a wave of racist abuse targeting “Ghostbusters” star Leslie Jones. He is also one of the best-known faces of the “alt-right” movement, which has been associated with white supremacism, antisemitism, and extreme right-wing populism.
In an email to TheWrap, Out Magazine editor-in-chief Aaron Hicklin said, “Naturally, we anticipated a negative reaction, but I hope readers will recognize that the strength of our profile lies in the diligent way Chadwick Moore interrogates his subject.”
Hicklin went on to say, “In my experience, there is a double standard at play when it comes to LGBT media, since other mainstream outlets such as Bloomberg magazine can write about Milo freely, but LGBT media is too often seen as having an obligation to self-censor subjects/people we don’t like even when they are in the midst of a political movement, as Milo is.”
He added: “The idea that we’re on team Milo, as some of the social media seems to suggest, is patently absurd.”
Read some of the Twitter backlash below.
https://twitter.com/OscarRaymundo/status/778650618177007616
https://twitter.com/prasejeebus/status/778639765730099200
https://twitter.com/nolanflaherty/status/778631750192885760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Exclusive GIF footage of the Out Magazine editors' meeting greenlighting that Milo story pic.twitter.com/I02IgZcFdK
— disco-leaning gay man (@austindotTV) September 21, 2016
https://twitter.com/dylanbjones/status/778633755498057728