Denis Leary likes his causes. He founded the Leary’s Firefighters Foundation almost a decade ago, donating large amounts of money and equipment to firefighters both before and after such tragic events as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Now he has a new one: telling parents of children with autism that their kids are actually just stupid and lazy.
In his new book, Why We Suck, Leary’s self-professed “favorite chapter” is titled Autism Shamautism. An excerpt:
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.
Unsurprisingly, the Autism Society of America isn’t amused, claiming his stance “reflects the same misconceptions of autism being caused by bad or unemotional parenting that were held over 50 years ago.” You have to wonder how Leary, the star and producer of Rescue Me, would react if someone called the huge boom in post-traumatic stress disorder cases “a way for shrinks to make more money.”
[Photo: Getty Images]
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2 Responses to “Denis Leary: “Yer Kid is NOT Autistic. He’s Just Stupid!””
Good point about PTSD. I actually did a rant on my blog using firefighters in the same general context as Leary did in his writings on autistic children to point how offensive the material is at the core. Leary will likely be his unrepentant self but it would say a lot of him as a performer and parent if he comes out and says he went a little too far this time.
[...] complains that people are misreading his stance. Here’s what Page Six quoted from the book yesterday: There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an [...]