Family Says He Changed His Mind After Being Hospitalized

Conservative radio host Phil Valentine dies of COVID after mocking vaccines
Conservative radio host Phil Valentine (image via Twitter)

An anti-LGBTQ conservative talk radio host who openly mocked coronavirus vaccines died on Saturday from COVID-19.

“We are extremely sad to report that our host and friend Phil Valentine has passed away,” wrote SuperTalk 99.7 on Twitter. “Please keep the Valentine family in your thoughts and prayers.”

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Just days before he was hospitalized with the virus, Valentine had shared a parody song he’d made mocking vaccines.

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The radio host’s brother, Mark Valentine, said in a statement in July that his brother had “never been an ‘anti-vaxer'” but after contracting the virus “regrets not being more vehemently ‘Pro-Vaccine.'”

But in December, Valentine told his followers in a since-deleted tweet he wouldn’t be getting vaccinated because in his estimation he had “a very low risk of A) getting COVID, and B) dying of it if I do. Why would I risk getting a heart attack or paralysis by getting the vaccine?”

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In April, he retweeted a post about “Forced inoculation of an experimental vaccine,” insinuating the government would forcibly inject people with COVID-19 vaccines.

In his tweet, Valentine wrote he “just had to let you see this.” He added, “It should scare the hell out of everybody.”

Note: the Food and Drug Administration granted the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine full approval today.

At this writing, the Tennessee Department of Health reports only 41 percent of those eligible for the shot in the state are fully vaccinated.

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Valentine also had a history of opposing LGBTQ rights like same-sex marriage.

During an on-air discussion about marriage equality, he compared marriage between to men to incest.

“The problem is the slippery slope, of course,” Valentine said in 2013. “And when I say this to folks, they say, ‘Oh! That’s ridiculous!’ But how can anybody that supports gay marriage sit there and say that they’d be against a father marrying his daughter if it’s a consensual relationship?”

In 2017, he penned a futuristic novel called The God Players which imagined a world where scientists discover a way to know in advance if a baby would be gay and how to change the child to straight while still in the womb.

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