After the Cpac rescinded its invitation to Breitbart editor and professional provocateur milo yiannopoulos, questions have been raised about his authenticity, as well as whether he's truly dangerous to the world at large. A recent news report suggests that he's been playing into old, malicious stereotypes about gay people -- that they are sexual deviants who approve of such things as pedophilia and child sexual abuse -- with his recent pronouncement that he somehow "benefited" from being abused by a priest at 13-years-old.
While this pronouncement was the thing that, ultimately, got his invitation to speak at the CPAC rescinded, it also begs the question: who, really, is Milo Yiannopoulos?
Milo Yiannopoulos: it's all an act
Born Milo Hanrahan in Britain, it bears noting that, prior to 2014, Yiannopoulos wrote under the pen name Milo Andreas Wagner. He was a poet of sorts, and he self-published a poetry book called "Eskimo Papoose." The resultant poetry was more emo and self-absorbed than anything you'd find in a teenager's LiveJournal rantings.
And though Yiannopoulos, who -- despite his pen name -- is not Greek, filled the poetry book with other anti-Semitic rantings, the book has been largely forgotten thanks to most people not realizing that the author of "Eskimo Papoose" and the breitbart editor are one in the same.
Though Milo Yiannopoulos denies that he's a spokesman for the alt-right -- also known as the White Nationalist movement -- he admits that he shares many of the same views. Though he is outspoken in his dissent of Islam, feminism, and social justice -- and wrote pieces about the Gamergate controversy that was in favor of the people who were harassing female gamers -- he didn't come to the forefront of the spotlight until July 2016, when he was permanently banned from Twitter. With the help of his followers, Milo Yiannopoulos harassed actress Leslie Jones incessantly, calling her by racially charged names and criticizing her for the remake of the film, "Ghostbusters."