Denise McAllister’s name ricocheted around the Internet last week thanks to a viral dispute with Meghan McCain, co-host of ABC’s “The View.” Now, the publisher of a conservative outlet says McAllister will no longer write for it after she sent a barrage of homophobic tweets aimed at a gay journalist on Saturday.
In response to your many inquiries, we've spoken and Denise McAllister will not be writing for us at The Federalist any more.
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) March 31, 2019
Publisher Ben Domenech said that McAllister had written for the Federalist on a freelance basis and that the feedback he had received from the public and other writers in response to her tweets played a role in his decision.
“We have hundreds of freelancers,” he told The Washington Post. “She won’t be one of them going forward.”
Soon after the news broke, McAllister went on the offensive. “I was fired when I criticized a gay man who mocked my heterosexual relationship,” she tweeted. “Yet no one defended me when I stood for masculinity and God’s design for sexuality despite outlets saying they represent Judeo-Christian values about sexuality, identity and purpose. What is truth?”
She has written on a range of subjects for conservative sites such as the Federalist, Daily Wire and PJ Media, but her defense of traditional gender roles and masculinity is a common theme in her work.
The tweets in question, however, were not so much an argument for the aforementioned values as they were a mockery of a journalist’s sexual orientation.
McAllister attacked journalist Yashar Ali after he commented on one of her tweets, which shared an anecdote about her marriage.
In a subsequent and more profane tweet, she also implied that his sexuality was attributable to the fact that he was “lost” and “doesn’t know his purpose as a man.”
McAllister deleted several of the offending tweets on Sunday and issued an apology.
“I apologize to Yasher [sic] Ali for responding to a perceived attack on my family in the manner I did,” she told The Post in a statement.
It is the second time in recent days that McAllister has made news for her comments. Last week, she helped launch a minor Internet frenzy when she criticized “The View,” calling it “a roundtable of delusional mental midgets ricocheting ignorance and lack of emotional regulation.”
Those words earned her a rebuke from McCain, who retorted, “you were at my wedding Denise....” McCain and Domenech wed in 2017. The rebuke launched a slew of memes, and McAllister later clarified that her criticism was aimed at “The View” in general, not at McCain specifically.
The backlash to McAllister’s comments about Ali was immediate and included fellow conservatives.
“I’m struggling to find your through line, Denise,” CNN’s S.E. Cupp tweeted after McAllister said she had been attacked for her comments. “I’ve had the same stuff aimed at me, of course, for years. That’s never magically turned me into a rageful homophobe. Free will, and all.”
The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro told The Post that he had contacted McAllister to ask that she remove the Daily Wire from her Twitter bio because of her tweets, which he said he found “gross” and “self-explanatorily beyond the boundaries of decency.”
In a now-deleted tweet about their exchange, McAllister implied she had “quit” the publication, but Shapiro said she had never been employed by the Daily Wire and had contributed articles over the years.
She later said in her statement to The Post that she regrets “any embarrassment I caused Ben Shapiro and The Daily Wire as well as Ben Domenech and The Federalist.”
In the early hours of Sunday, Ali responded to McAllister’s attacks on Twitter, saying, “I have always been proud of who I am.”
“I’m Iranian, gay, and Catholic,” he wrote. “Perhaps an odd combo, but I wouldn’t change who I am for the world.”
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