‘You have a right to be heard in America’: American Conservative Union head DEFENDS decision to invite Yiannopoulos to CPAC but says when new videos emerged ‘we couldn’t have it any longer’
Milo Yiannopoulos lost his $250,000 book deal with Simon & Schuster Monday
He has been disinvited by CPAC, the annual conservative conference where he was set to speak this week
On Facebook he wrote: ‘I’ve gone through worse. This will not defeat me’
Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said Yannopoulos got disinvited because he broke ‘very important boundaries’
But Shclapp also defended the decision to invite him, saying ‘You have a right to be heard in America’
Said he was a ‘big voice’ in the conservative movement
The firebrand discussed ‘coming of age’ relationships in an online debate
The controversial commentator star claimed teenagers could ‘discover who they are’ by having a gay relationship with an older man
However, he strongly denied he was defending pedophilia during the debate
By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.s. Political Editor
DailyMail.com
21 February 2017
The head of the American Conservative Union is defending his decision to invite controversial speaker Milo Yiannopoulos to the annual CPAC conference – even though he withdrew the invitation after videos containing ‘out of bounds’ comments emerged.
Matt Schlapp, who heads the ACU, told MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe,’ indicated he was aware of anti-Semitic statements by Yiannopoulos, but decided to invite him to highlight campus free speech issues.
‘I think when it comes to what he does on campus … You have a right to be heard in America and you have a right to be heard on campus. And it’s not fair on campus that just voices that emanate from the left seem to be cherished and not voices from the right,’ Shlapp said.
But he took back the invitation after videos came out where Yiannopoulis described the benefits of ‘coming of age relationships’ – though the outspoken conservative said he was not defending pedophilia.
‘There are boundaries, and over the weekend I was made aware of these comments and it just broke though very important boundaries and we felt like the CPAC stage was not an appropriate place for this any longer,’ said Schlapp.
Yiannopoulos lost his $250,000 book deal on Monday after video was leaked that showed the alt-right poster boy appearing to defend pedophilia.
Publisher Simon & Schuster said: ‘After careful consideration, Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint have canceled publication of Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos.’
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