Denis Leary Comes Under Fire For Calling Autistic Kids “Junior Morons”
Denis Leary has a new book out, called Why We Suck: A Feel-Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid. Charming, no? What else would you expect from Denis Leary, after all? In my opinion, he goes a bit too far, though, by attacking autistic kids and their parents. In a chapter titled “Autism Schmautism” he writes:
“There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can’t compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks…. to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don’t give a [bleep] what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you - yer kid is NOT autistic. He’s just stupid. Or lazy. Or both.”
How nice. My nephew is autistic and there is no way he is “just” stupid or lazy. He clearly has a developmental problem, and that’s more than evident even to this layperson.
The Autism Society of America responded to Leary’s nastiness.
“For Mr. Leary to suggest that families or doctors conspire to falsely diagnose autism is ridiculous… [His] remarks reflect the same misconceptions of autism being caused by bad or unemotional parenting that were held over 50 years ago.”
Leary has tried to defend himself by suggesting that his “critics obviously haven’t read the book.”
“Or if they have,” the Emmy-nominated actor said in a statement, “they missed the sections I thought made my feelings about autism very clear: that I not only support the current rational approaches to the diagnoses and treatment of real autism but have witnessed it firsthand while watching very dear old friends raise a functioning autistic child.”
So Denis Leary, who is neither a medical doctor nor psychologist nor psychiatrist nor any kind of health professional whatsoever - but clearly an incredibly skilled douchebag - is now the arbiter of what is a “real” diagnosis and what is not. OIC. What a turd!
[ Images by WENN ]
POSTED BY: gossipmonkey
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