Andy Rooney Returns to TV With Apology

Andy Rooney solemnly returned to “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, emphasizing that he was not a racist and saying that he had not intended to hurt homosexuals with a statement he had made about gays during a CBS-TV special program.

The “60 Minutes” commentator was reinstated by CBS News three weeks after being slapped with a three-month suspension over remarks about blacks and gays attributed to him in The Advocate, a Los Angeles-based gay magazine. The controversy over the suspension of Rooney has generated thousands of phone calls and letters of support for the 70-year-old commentator.

“What do I say to defend myself? Do I say: ‘I am not a racist?’ ” Rooney asked in his commentary at the end of the CBS show. “That sounds like saying: ‘I am not a crook.’ ”

Rooney has categorically denied making the remark attributed to him in The Advocate about blacks having “watered down their genes” because the least intelligent among them had the most children. “It’s demeaning to have to sit here and defend myself,” he said.

He recalled that he had participated in sit-ins with black soldiers many years ago in the Army and noted that Benjamin L. Hooks, director of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said recently that Rooney was not a bigot.

Noting that he had been troubled by the prospect of being known “as a racist bigot and as someone who had made life a little more difficult for homosexuals,” Rooney said: “I felt terrible about that, and I’ve learned a lot.”

The controversy over Rooney’s attitude towards gays began after a December CBS special program in which Rooney said people had recognized that many self-induced ills, such as “too much alcohol, too much food, drugs, homosexual unions, cigarettes . . . (are) all known to lead quite often to premature death.”

Referring to that remark, Rooney said Sunday: “How do I apologize to homosexuals for hurting them with a remark I made that I didn’t realize would hurt them?”

In an interview Sunday night, Rooney said his rhetorical question in his “60 Minutes” commentary was intended as an apology to gays. “Implicit in the question ‘How do I apologize?’ is that I apologize,” he said. “I felt badly about having made their life more difficult.”

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation--the group that originally protested Rooney’s remarks in the CBS special program--reacted positively to his commentary.

“We wish that he had gone further, to condemning homophobia,” said Karin Schwartz, assistant director of the group. “But this statement, combined with other remarks he has made recently, indicate that he has apologized in a public way. We’re hoping that this will set the foundation for increased sensitivity about homophobic remarks at the TV networks.”