The incendiary conservative pundit stood by her use of the slur Tuesday, but John Franklin Stephens challenged her to attend the Special Olympics and leave with an unchanged heart.
A Special Olympian with Down Syndrome castigated right-wing flamethrower Ann Coulter for calling President Obama a 'retard' after the final presidential debate.
A Special Olympics athlete with Down syndrome has shamed conservative pundit Ann Coulter in an open letter after she called President Obama a “retard” this week.
“Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren't dumb and you aren't shallow,” wrote John Franklin Stephens in a blog post. “So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?”
Stephens, 30, told Coulter that he has “struggled with the public's perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow.”
“I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest of you. In fact it has taken me all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last night.”
Coulter used the offensive term when commenting about the final presidential debate on Twitter.
“I highly approve of Romney's decision to be kind and gentle to the retard,” Coulter wrote Monday night.
WILL SCHERMERHORN/SPECIAL OLYMPICS, INC
John Franklin Stephens is a Special Olympics athlete.
Despite widespread outrage about the tweet, Coulter doubled down on her word choice on Tuesday.
“If he's ‘the smartest guy in the room’ it must be one retarded room,” she wrote about Obama.
In his open letter, Stephens wondered whether Coulter had used the word to suggest that President Obama was “bullied as a child by people like you” or that he “has to struggle to be thoughtful about everything he says.”
“After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the President by linking him to people like me,” he wrote. “You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on TV.”
“Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor,” he said.
Stephens invited Coulter to attend the Special Olympics, challenging her to “walk away with your heart unchanged.”
Coulter has not yet publicly responded to the open letter, which Stephens signed “a friend you haven’t made yet.”
The conservative commentator has a long history of using inflammatory and offensive language.
Her latest insensitive remark comes just weeks after she was criticized for joking that national “coming out” day would be followed by national “disown your son” day.
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