Channing: I
didn't say it like that

A recent interview with Carol Channing has left some in the gay community up in arms, but she has since given a rebuttal interview with the gay biweekly In Los Angeles Magazine to dispel the impression that she is homophobic.

An article by Kaizaad Kotwal in the November 10 issue of the Cleveland-basedweekly Gay People's Chronicle quoted Channing as denouncing gays and her gay following. "I am knee-deep in the Bible," she said in the interview, "and you know what it says about that."

Channing, in the interview with Jeremy Kinser and Karen Ocamb for In Los Angeles, said, "I never said that! I've never read anything in the Bible about being gay, or at least I haven't read that part. But it is true that I don't think about them in that way. They are gay. Who cares? The Bible says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' "

The interview with Gay People's Chronicle also quoted Channing as saying that gay people fighting for rights was "not [her] problem" and that "if they can't take care of their own problems, then why should I bother."

In her InLos Angeles interview, Channing noted that her record of fighting for gay rights "speaks for itself" and described gays as self-sufficient. "Not being gay, it hasn't been a problem I've had to live with myself," she said. (The Advocate)