Vox In A Box

Ezra Klein's new media venture, Vox.com, is getting off the ground soon and he's managed to hire a number of talented people, including Matthew Yglesias, Sarah Kliff, and more.  Unfortunately, as the American Prospect's Gabe Arana points out, his newest hire on the LGBTQ beat is Brandon Ambrosino, arguably one of the worst self-hating gay hacks out there.

The problem with hiring Ambrosino is not that Klein isn't entitled to bring someone on board whose views the gay community finds distasteful. It's that Ambrosino's quick rise to notoriety—and now, his ticket aboard the profession’s hottest new upstart—is an object lesson in the way new media equates click-bait contrarianism with serious thought and gives hacks a platform in the name of ideological balance.

A 23-year-old graduate of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University...

Well that right there explains everything you need to know about Ambrosino, yes?

Ambrosino has earned his name as a journalist—and his coveted spot at Vox Media—by being the gay writer who comes to the defense of gay-rights antagonists. He most recently stirred up a storm by proclaiming, at The New Republic, that homosexuality is a choice and that he has chosen to be gay. Time magazine gave him space to call gays the real bigots for piling on Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson, who had equated homosexuality with bestiality and said gays weren't going to heaven (still, Ambrosino says he wouldn't mind going fishing with the guy). At The Atlantic, Ambrosino threw his hat in the ring for the founder of his alma mater, who blamed September 11 on gays and accused them of trying to "recruit" children; Ambrosino says liberals like Bill Maher have slandered the Moral Majority founder and says, in Falwell's defense, that the guy with the "big fat smile" probably wouldn't have had him stoned to death if he'd known about Ambrosino's sexuality. Ambrosino also defends the views of ex-gay therapists and same-sex marriage opponents, whom he says aren't motivated by bigotry. In The Baltimore Sun, Ambrosino went after the guys in "butt-less chaps and high-heels" at gay-pride marches who earn society's prejudice with their "hypersexual antics": “I think there is a subversive power in living out my gay life in a way that seeks to emphasize the common ground I share with straight communities,” he wrote. “I don't want to participate in an event that seeks to highlight how countercultural I am.” Unsurprisingly, the religious right has been thrilled to find an acolyte among the fallen.

Now, Ambrosino is a known quantity, and Vox knew exactly what they were doing when they hired him.  In Ezra Klein's defense, why should Slate, Salon, BuzzFeed, Politico and HuffPo make all the money off of regularly trolling liberals?  The guy apparently understands exactly how the game works, guys.

In other words, this is how Ezra rolls.  Our"new" liberal media is just as bad as the current bunch of clowns.