Tracy Morgan Looks To Make Amends for Anti-Gay Tirade

Tracy Morgan will return to Nashville to directly apologize to the people he offended with a barrage of homophobic comments during a recent comedy show.

A post on the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation website says that Morgan will also meet “with people who have been hurt by anti-gay rejection and violence” and has agreed to meet families who have lost children to homophobic violence and youth who have been ostracized for their sexuality.

This decision marks Morgan's latest attempt to make amends for a June 3 comedy show where he said that children who complain about anti-gay bullying are “whining” and that if he had a son who acted gay, he would stab him to death.

Morgan, not exactly known for being coherent, apologized last Friday in a statement released to the media. It said, in part, “While I am an equal opportunity jokester, and my friends know what is in my heart, even in a comedy club this clearly went too far and was not funny in any context.”

And in a telephone conversation with GLAAD, Morgan elaborated:

I know how bad bullying can hurt. I was bullied when I was a kid. I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it. I never want to use my comedy to hurt anyone. My family knew what it was like to feel different. My brother was disabled and I lost my father to AIDS in 1987. My dad wasn’t gay but I also learned about homophobia then because of how people treated people who were sick with that. Parents should support and love their kids no matter what. Gay people deserve the same right to be happy in this country as everyone else. Our laws should support that.

Some of Morgan’s high-profile friends have rushed to his defense since news of his rant first broke. Morgan’s 30 Rock co-star Tina Fey condemned his comments as violent and disturbing, but also said Morgan “is not a hateful man and is generally much too sleepy and self-centered to ever hurt another person.”

Fey continued: "I hope for his sake that Tracy's apology will be accepted as sincere by his gay and lesbian co-workers at 30 Rock, without whom Tracy would not have lines to say, clothes to wear, sets to stand on, scene partners to act with, or a printed-out paycheck from accounting to put in his pocket."