FM station losing
listeners after antigay remarks

A New York City radio station is losing listeners because of "racist, sexist, and homophobic" remarks its hosts have made on the air about city council speaker Christine Quinn, an out lesbian, the New York Post's Page Six column reports.

Some hosts on local FM station WBAI, a Pacifica Radio affiliate, were angry with Quinn's opposition to renaming four blocks of Gates Avenue in Brooklyn after the late African-American activist Sonny Carson. Carson had led a boycott of a Korean deli in 1990, prompting Quinn to call him "antiwhite," Page Six reports.

According to Page Six's sources, over the past month several WBAI personalities have made antigay comments about Quinn, with one of them, Father Lawrence Lucas, calling her a "nasty lesbo," among other things, the column reports.

"The public outcry against these comments demonstrates there is no tolerance for hatred and bigotry in this city," Quinn's representative said, according to the Post. WBAI did not return the paper's calls. (The Advocate)