I don’t usually cite the New York Post‘s Page Six, but that’s where celebrity flaps are covered, and Sean Penn is nothing if not a celebrity. So it’s good to see someone pointing out James Kirchick’s entirely correct assessment of the recent Penn-Castro-Chávez affair in The Advocate. Says Kirchick: “Gay rights are human rights, as Milk said, and Penn discredits both when he rationalizes illiberal ideologies as ‘anti-imperialist’ and rushes to the defense of thugs who posture as victims of the West.”
Sean Penn’s publicist, Mara Buxbaum, has cried foul:
Kirchick’s commentary about Sean Penn’s cover story neglects to include that Penn in fact addressed the issue of oppression toward homosexuals in Cuba in his full essay which was printed on the Huffington Post site on Dec. 1.
Here in the HuffPo essay, Penn does indeed mention his then 14-year-old daughter’s (not his own) concern with Cuban oppression of homosexuals. She’s the one who puts the question to Fidel Castro in the flesh. Then Penn throws his daughter under the bus by regurgitating Fidel’s spin on the matter, which amounts to “mistakes were made.” Penn concludes: “My daughter was disarmed….” It’s quite a moment: Penn seems more admiring toward the dictator than toward his precocious and morally perceptive teenager.
P.S. Marc Cooper on the new Che film. And George Packer, a real foreign correspondent, rips into Penn.
P.P.S. A reminder that when Chávez recently ejected two Human Rights Watch officials from Venezuela, a pro-Chávez legislator made allusions to the two officials having gay sex in their hotel room. Sean Penn, supposed gay-rights advocate, supports the Chávez regime.
Comments are closed.