Meet Riaz Patel, The Gay Liberal Muslim Who Is Glenn Becks New BFF – Daily Beast

Glenn Beck, who once opined that marriage equality would lead to social destruction, has changed his mind on LGBT equality. Riaz Patel, his new gay BFF, insists the transformation is sincere.

The unlikely metamorphosis of Glenn Beck from nutty right-wing conspiracy-monger to rational-seeming defender of American democracyand opponent of all things Donald Trumphas crossed over into a new frontier.

The 53-year-old multimedia firebrand and self-described catastrophistwho shocked and possibly alienated his dwindling fan-base three months ago by forming an anti-Trump alliance with lefty satirist Samantha Beeis these days spending quality time with a Pakistani-born, politically liberal, gay, Muslim television producer.

Riaz Patelwho also happens to be the parent, with his British-born husband, of an 11-month old girl conceived by artificial insemination and carried to term by a Mexican surrogateis the Emmy-nominated principal of Axial Entertainment, a successful Los Angeles-based production company responsible for such reality TV shows as LifetimesHow to Look Good Nakedand VH1sI Heart Nick Carter, among more than a dozen other projects.

Patel used to fear and loathe Becks divisive hype.

I did use the expression White Devil, Patel told The Daily Beast, because I honestly thought he was hateful, angry news personified. I thought he is absolutely partly responsible for this culture of madness and chaos and rage all the time that we have right now.

But the 43-year-old Patel, a U.S. citizen who arrived here from Karachi as a baby with his parents and two older sisters escaping political pandemonium in Pakistan, had a change of heart after meeting Beck last July and engaging in hundreds of hours of conversation with him since then.

The bicoastal Patelwho is negotiating to accept an editor-at-large role brainstorming ideas for shows while making films for The Blazes sister web site, GlennBeck.comvisits Becks suburban Dallas studios nearly every week to discuss possible projects, has made 15 appearances on Becks radio and television shows, and in February trekked to Thailand with him to film a piece about an organization that fights child sex-slavery.

The simpatico is shocking, Patel said about his interactions with Beck. But Patel, who has lost liberal friends over his new collaboration, added: Im a bridge, not a defectorIm nobodys pawn Im not a Stockholm Syndrome guy who loves my captor.

Beck, meanwhile, was not available for comment. Well leave this to Riaz, said his New York publicist, Davidson Goldin.

Patel, who grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore with his surgeon-father and real estate entrepreneur-mother, double-majored at the University of Pennsylvania in psychology and literature and graduated with academic honors while pursuing a demanding pre-med program.

Patel is not unaware of the doubts that some have raised about Becks latest attempt to rebrand himself as a reasonable man.

Indeed, last September, a certain degree of skepticism greeted Beckwho had previously accused racist President Obama of harboring a deep-seated hatred of white people, and the first lady of being a monsterwhen he launched a series of remorseful mainstream media appearances with an Op-Ed in theNew York Timesurging empathy for the Black Lives Matter movement.

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A longtime Beck associate opined at the time that Becks apparent transformation is about a pattern of reinvention and cycle of apology and offenseI think hes up to his sixth apology cycle now, where hes onto the mainstream media when theyre supporting him, and then he realizes hes going to get burned, and he runs away from them. Hes basically flailing.

In an email to The Daily Beast, Patel wrote: Gosh I hope it doesnt seem like Im just willing to overlook anything damaging for a show.I still need to look at myself in the mirror every eveningand thats the biggest thing for me.

As a result of his friendship with Beck, however,I have caught myself recently a bunch of times in a double-standard when it comes to the right vs. the left, Patel wrote. Im saying a lot of this because I was forced to step COMPLETELY out of my comfort zoneand by doing so, realized the other side isnt always who I thought they wereWho is to say what is right or the right interpretation.I just want to share with you my personal experiencewhat I have seen and felt with my own eyes.Thats all.

In an interview, Patel said: I believe hes sincereWe can move forward both personally and professionally when I can tell him, This is what I see. This is what I fear. This is my concern. And if he can address all that while maintaining eye contact, were done.

This, despite Becks inflammatory attacks on progressives and Muslims, two groups to which Patel belongs and historically two of Becks most reviled scapegoats.

More recently, on Thursday, during his syndicated morning radio show simulcast Becks The Blaze web site, he compared the abortion services provided by Planned Parenthoodunfavorablyto the diabolical experiments that Josef Mengele performed on Jewish victims at Auschwitz.

Mengele hadgoodintentions, Beck declared, conflating the notorious SS doctor with Planned Parenthood and Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of first-degree murder in 2013 in the deaths of three infants born alive during the procedures. Mengele would sit there and tell you Well, Im trying to improve the human race.

Patel, who attributes some of Becks wackier and more offensive statements to the pitfalls of filling three hours of unscripted radio every morning, said he continues to disagree with much of Becks rabble-rousing rhetoric,yet sees his surprising new friend as willing to listen and maybe even reformable.

For instance, Beck has been a defender of same-sex marriage at least since December 2012, when he argued on his show,The question is not whether gay people should be married or not, the question is why is the government involved in our marriage; Beck added that the legal solemnization of gay relationships doesnt pick my pocket or break my leg.

Beck, a Mormon convert, was not always so enlightened. In one of his previous incarnations, he speculated that same-sex marriage would destroy essential social and religious institutions and inevitably lead to legalized polygamy.

He also cozied up to a rogues gallery of politicians and pastors who promoted anti-LBGTQ policies and rhetoric, including James Dobson, John Hagee, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin.

But by December 2013, he was publicly supporting campaign group GLAAD in their opposition toRussias official anti-gay bigotry. I will stand with GLAAD against Russias hetero-fascism, he declared on CNN.

I am now realizing that I was essentially uninformed when I say I hated Glenn Beck for who he was, Patel said. If I was really being honest, I dont think I ever watched one of his shows. A lot of it was coming from this perception of him and my sense of what are the things he doesnt like about me. I was pretty obnoxious in my opinions. That being said, there are things he should be held accountable for, and I do believe has done wrong.

Patel said he readItIsAbout Islamat Becks urging, and came away both impressed and troubled.

His opinions about Islam are very informed, but I think the framing is a bit off, and when were looking at it, hes learning my point of view, Patel said. The tone, I felt, was a little alarmist, not an attack. But Glenn calls himself a catastrophist.

Ironically, it was Islam and catastrophe that brought them together. Patel, wearing traditional Pakistani garb, was attending a wedding in Orlando, Fla., the weekend last June when ISIS-inspired terrorist Omar Mateen, the American-born son of Muslim Afghan parents, shot more than 100 revelers and killed 49 at the gay Orlando nightclub Pulse.

Worrying that the massacre would provoke a nationwide wave of Islamophobia, Patela secular Muslimreached out to various television news outlets to explain that Mateens atrocity had nothing to do with the tenets of Islam, and to represent Muslims and their faith in a positive, non-threatening light.

He managed to get bookings on CNNappearing on Don Lemon and Brooke Baldwins showsand on blond bomb-thrower Tomi Lahrens rantfest on TheBlaze.

WHERE DID HE SAY THIS? AND DID HE SAY IT? THIE QUOTE DOESNT MAKE SENSE AT THE END I could go out and do a horrible act of violence in the name of Tomi, and then suddenly you are left to defend it. If people go and do these kinds of horrible, heinous things in the name of my religionand I have literally nothing to do with itis it my responsibility now? If I literally said everyone from South Dakota should be blamed for something horrible committed by a South Dakotan, are you responsible, Tomi?

Patel was so impassioned, eloquent and composed that a member of Lahrens production staff recommended him as the perfect guest for Becks evening television program. The following month, he was Becks sole guest for an hour.

Wouldnt it be crazy if the solution to all of these problems was as simple as humbling yourself and saying, OK, let me listen? Beck told Patel as the two sat opposite each other in overstuffed chairs and tentatively felt each other out.

I think youre absolutely right, Patel said. I believe you can create a better America with four chairs. Literally. Thats all you need. Three people having a conversation. Not two. At some point youll disagree and someone will walk away. You need three for a dynamic. And a fourth person has to listen.

Thus, with Patel shrewdly engaging Beck in decidedly Beck-like language, was the beginning, apparently, of a beautiful friendship.

But what if Beck backslides and reverts to form in his longtime role as a divisive demagogue?

Some days hes happy, some days hes sad, some days hes angry, and people are tuning in to watch that person, Patel said. Maybe he had a rough night and hes more edgy. Some days he is more angry. I dont think hell ever walk the walk every day. But to me, thats where his heart is.

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Meet Riaz Patel, The Gay Liberal Muslim Who Is Glenn Becks New BFF - Daily Beast