In a strange twist, Fox Corp has demanded Fox News suspend what is being called anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.

Fox Pride’s statement went on to suggest Fox News’ on-air treatment of the LGBTQ+ community is at odds with the values of its own parent company. “While the internal support and resources Fox Corp. offers to LGBTQ+ employees are amazing and supportive, the public facing messaging and rhetoric is the opposite,” Fox Pride wrote. “We find it disheartening and a step backward in the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community.”

Put another way by one Fox insider to the Daily Beast: “Internally, the company values diversity. They invest in it and foster it from a management perspective. The on-air Fox News product, however, spits in the face of it,” and “the employees are getting sick of it.” That hypocrisy is part of why employees are “very outraged,” the insider noted, given the network’s personalities are “targeting Disney for doing what [Fox is] doing internally in terms of promoting inclusion.”

“We are fully committed to freedom of speech and freedom of the press because we know these precious rights as well as diversity of thought and opinion benefit us all,” Fox Corp said in a comment to Vanity Fair. Fox News referred Vanity Fair to the same statement.

For months, Fox News has bolstered the Republican party’s nationwide attack against LGBTQ+ Americans. Fox News personalities have gone to bat for Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law and similar legislation that ban classroom discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation with misleading or false statements. Laura Ingraham claimed such laws are “aimed at protecting kids and women,”  while Sean Hannity pushed the network’s newest contributor Caitlyn Jenner, who is transgender, to call Florida’s anti-LGBTQ+ bill “common sense.” Their coverage took an even uglier turn when Disney took a stand against Florida’s law, as Media Matters notes. Ingraham claimed Disney is “grooming” children, while Tucker Carlson said Disney is acting like a “sex offender.” 

Fox Pride’s internal message was prompted by the Human Rights Campaign’s decision to strip Fox Corp of its status as a preferred LGBTQ-friendly employer, deducting Fox’s rating on the Corporate Equality Index from 100 to 75. “We can no longer allow Fox Corporation to maintain its score if Fox News personalities and contributors continue to deny the existence of transgender people, minimize the violence transgender individuals face, refer to parents of LGBTQ+ youth as perverts, or equate leaders of LGBTQ+ diversity and inclusions efforts with sex offenders,” HRC spokesperson Aryn Fields said in a statement, noting “each of these actions happened in the last 72 hours. Enough is enough.”

Fox’s LGBTQ staff group’s denouncement of Fox News’ coverage of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and other issues regarding sexual orientation and gender identity offers a valuable glimpse into the internal dissension across Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. Fox employees objecting to what their employer puts on the airwaves is a rare occurrence, tensions that in recent years have bubbled up in recent years from Carlson’s segments. Two longtime Fox News contributors, Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg, resigned last year over Carlson’s special on the January 6 riot and the broader radicalization of the network. The top-rated Fox News opinion star’s incendiary docuseries also prompted reported objections from political anchors Bret Baier and Chris Wallace, who has since moved on to CNN+.