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Rush Limbaugh took at jab at all same-sex marriages after hearing the news that Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, a lesbian couple who was among the first to marry in California, is now getting a divorce. But they're perfectly capable of jabbing back, just not with a built-in national audience.
Rush Limbaugh took at jab at all same-sex marriages after hearing the news that the lesbian couple who was among the first to marry in California is now getting a divorce. But they're perfectly capable of jabbing back, just not with a built-in national audience.
Limbaugh, who is on his fourth marriage, criticized Robin Tyler and Diane Olson for how long they were married.
"Did you see that the poster couple for gay marriage in California are getting a divorce? You see that? It's true," he said on his radio show in February. "It's two women, they were among the first 14 same-sex couples who got married on the day the ban was lifted in California back in June of 2008. I guess the national average, three-and-a-half years, is what their marriage lasted, maybe it's the California average. I'm not sure.”
What he leaves out is that Tyler and Olson were a couple for 18 years, applying for a marriage license every year since 2001. They were the first couple to legally marry in Los Angeles County, where they sued for the right. Tyler, an activist and a comedian for 40 years, wasn't amused but kept her sense of humor.
"Rush Limbaugh is two or three divorces ahead of me," she said in a statement to Advocate. "He is the kind of guy who thinks women are sluts and lesbians have penis envy. Well, I don't have penis envy. I have 12 at home in a drawer in Northridge. I get excited in New York and my drawer pops open in California!”
Always insightful, Limbaugh pondered the complexities of lesbian divorce.
"I wonder if they designated one of them the husband so that he gets all the blame and has to pay all the alimony," he said. "How does that work?”
If Limbaugh was kidding, Tyler sees a lot of his true self in his joking. She is a pioneer of out comedy and made the first out album called Always a Bridesmaid, Never A Groom in the '70s.
"I will give him one thing," she said. "I believe that Rush Limbaugh is great for birth control. I mean, who the hell would want to sleep with him?"
