The Unethical, Amoral Cesspool Tony Ortega Sold his Soul To

This past week we’ve been examining Tony Ortega’s response to the numerous instances of protest aimed at him for his participation in the Backpage child sex trafficking scheme he so ardently defended while on their payroll.

We’ve seen how angry protestors fed up with Ortega’s two-faced ‘human-trafficking-as-First-Amendment-right’ defense of Backpage flocked to his offices to make their opposition to him felt in numbers too great to ignore.

We’ve seen how students from Tony Ortega’s own college raised their voices in defiance of his dogged insistence on protecting online perverts from anti-sex slavery advocates campaigning against the Backpage’s business model which commodified the sexual abuse of minors.

Today we turn our attention to another form of protest – this time in the form of an open letter to Village Voice Media written by 36 members of clergy who described themselves as “moral and religious leaders of many creeds and backgrounds”.

In stark contrast to the rambling, hypocritical, and often self-contradictory excuses Tony Ortega would make on behalf of the human trafficking overlords signing his paychecks, the demands made by the ecumenical leaders were short, to the point, and backed with the power of conviction.

They were demanding that the company shut down the “adult” section of its classified listings, the infamous “Backpage”, on the ground that it was nothing more than “a platform for the trafficking of minors.”

In just a few short hours, Village Voice Media shot back accusing the group of refusing to come to the table – even refusing their offer to fly disparate signers to New York for a candid conversation.

In what was tantamount to a propaganda blitz, the Village Voice Media plastered their response across their various tabloid media outlets across the nation.

It was clear they were making a coordinated attempt to push a self-serving narrative in order to protect themselves by claiming they were being unfairly bullied.

The Village Voice response read in part: “_Neither government officials nor God_’s advocates can dictate such arbitrary control of business or speech… Backpage has spent millions of dollars and dedicated countless resources to protecting children from those who would misuse an adult site … If someone is caught shipping contraband through the Post Office, we do not shut down the U.S. mail.”

It was an appealing metaphor to be sure. Deceptive. False. And purposefully designed to make Backpage and its myriad co-conspirators look like they were the real victims in the whole affair.

In other words: it was very on-brand response for the unethical, amoral cesspool Tony Ortega sold his soul to.