A Fox News contributor says she was “misunderstood” when she suggested that 22-year-old Elliot Rodger — who killed six people and wounded 13 others in an Isla Vista, Calif., massacre on Friday — may have been triggered because he could not cope with his “homosexual impulses.”
Rodger, who took his own life in a police standoff following the rampage, left behind a 141-page manifesto and several YouTube videos expressing his anger over being ignored by women, and treated “like scum.”
“I will destroy all women because I can never have them. I will make them all suffer for rejecting me,” he wrote. “If they won’t accept me among them, then they are my enemies. They showed me no mercy, and in turn I will show them no mercy.”
But in an appearance Saturday on “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” Fox News “expert” and reality TV psychotherapist Dr. Robi Ludwig speculated that Rodger may have been angry at women “because they were taking away men from him.”
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“When I was first listening to him, I was like, ‘Oh, he’s angry with women for rejecting him,’” Ludwig said. “And then I started to have a different idea: Is this somebody who is trying to fight against his homosexual impulses?’”
Watch (via Raw Story):
On Monday, Ludwig posted to Facebook that her remarks were “misunderstood” and did not mean to imply that “being a homosexual or having homosexual impulses is a cause for spree killing.”
Ludwig, a doctor of psychology, also said, while acknowledging that she didn’t know and didn’t diagnose Rodger, that he may have been at the early stages of schizophrenia.
Her remarks have been widely criticized as professionally unethical for speculating on a person’s mental health for entertainment or political purposes while assuming the role of an expert.
