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Rightwingers rage at CNN’s New Year’s Eve for showing a gay kiss

CNN and other networks were accused of "grooming" children by showing the same-sex kiss.
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CNN's cameras caught two men kissing at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve.
CNN's cameras caught two men kissing at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve. Photo: Screenshot

CNN ruined New Year’s Eve for anti-LGBTQ+ bigots mere seconds into 2024 by cutting to two men kissing in New York City’s Times Square.

The moment happened during the cable network’s New Year’s Eve Live coverage Sunday night—already a pretty gay affair as it’s anchored by out media personalities Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper. But CNN upped the LGBTQ+ ante this year: immediately after the ball dropped at midnight, the network cut to footage of two men sharing a traditional New Year’s Eve kiss.

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Other broadcast networks also cut to CNN’s coverage of the Times Square festivities at midnight, so the first thing many Americans saw on TV this year was a same-sex kiss.

“CNN’s first shot after the ball drop appears to be an interracial gay kiss. The outrage will be hilarious,” Joe My God blogger Joe Jervis predicted shortly after the kiss aired.

And he was right.

Various X users responded to Jervis’s post describing the televised moment as “sick,” “sickening,” “sick and disgusting,” and “Weimar Republic activities.”

“Every child across America watched two gay men kiss as the ball dropped to bring in 2024,” another conservative user on X wrote. “Every channel broadcasting the ball drop simultaneously broadcasted a scene most children have not yet been exposed to: Fox News, CNN, CBS: groomers.”

In a multi-post rant, another user accused CNN of “a psychological operation which was designed to intrude on Middle America.”

“An interracial gay couple is not representative of Times Square, New York City, the Stare [sic] of New York or the United States,” the same user wrote. “If the networks were going to go with the interracial gay kiss, those networks should’ve made the kiss less graphic because, honestly, it was gross.”

Others ventured into conspiracy territory, suggesting that the kiss was staged. “CNN decided to ring in the new year with 20 minutes of gay innuendos, gay references and this delightful kiss which definitely was not carefully scripted,” one X user wrote.

Another posted, with no evidence, that “the gay guys who kissed at midnight on CNN were definitely paid actors.”

After his own post celebrating the kiss drew backlash from homophobes on X, publicist Ryan Aguirre shared his responses.

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Anderson Cooper Andy Cohen CNN Gay Kiss New Year's Eve Times Square

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