Particular honor was given to a June 21, 2007 segment, also condemned by GLAAD, about a "lesbian gang epidemic," which O'Reilly generously estimated was aired "five or six years ago." On that episode, the "epidemic" was attributed to the August 2006 beating and stabbing of 28-year-old "lesbian attack victim" Wayne Buckle by a group of women after witnesses and police say he spat on and slurred one of them for rejecting his sexual advances. O'Reilly and Fox News "crime analyst" Rod Wheeler spoke of a national network of "lesbian gangs" committing violent crimes and recruiting children, who would be "indoctrinated into homosexuality" and possibly forced to commit gay sex acts.

"You associate homosexuality more with a social movement, not a criminal movement," O'Reilly said. "But you're saying that this is all over the country, Detective?"

"It's all over the country--and it's mainly in your larger cities," Wheeler said. "You go from New York to California to wherever you want to name, you can see these organizations. Now, the other thing, too, that our viewers are going to find very interesting is the fact that they actually carry--some of these groups--carry pink pistols. They call themselves the pack--the 'Pink Pistol Packing Group'--and these are lesbians that actually carry pink pistols. That's 9mm Glocks. They use these, they commit crimes, and they cause a lot of hurt to a lot of people."

The Pink Pistols is actually an advocacy organization and club, with chapters in the United States and Canada, emphasizing the proper use of firearms for self-defense among sexual minorities, common targets for violence.

"We have 150 to 175 total gangs in the D.C. area, and out of those only nine where the predominance of members are female," Sgt. Brett Parson, former commander of Washington D.C.'s gay police liaison unit, told the Southern Poverty Law Center. "You simply can't make the jump that they are lesbians. I think it is fair to talk about violence and female gangs. But to sensationalize or marginalize a community by making a statement like that seems irresponsible."

Wheeler later returned to the O'Reilly Factor to issue an apology.

Connell also took issue with commentator Megyn Kelly's take on the California Supreme Court's May 15 ruling affirming the equal right to marry a person of the same sex. While Kelly opined that the court legislated from the bench, Connell contended that the ruling was acknowledging the fundamental right for a person to marry the person of one's choice, thanks particularly to California's 1948 ruling in Perez v. Sharp, striking down the state's law against interracial marriage.

"Here's why you guys are mad at me," O'Reilly speculated. "I embarrassed your community because you invaded a Catholic church in San Francisco. Not you, yourself, but members of your community, dressed as nuns--transvestite nuns--received the Eucharist, embarrassed the priests there. And I said 'This is unacceptable.'"

"Not one gay leader," he continued, "including yourself, in San Francisco--not one--criticized that action. You didn't want me broadcasting it. And you guys didn't criticize it. And that's why you gave me that award."

Two members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, in October of 2007, received Holy Communion from an unwitting Archbishop George Niederauer. O'Reilly used the opportunity to decry so-called "San Francisco values" in a city run by "far-left secular progressives who despise the military, traditional values and religion."

"The gay-lesbian gangs was Rod Wheeler making a mistake," O'Reilly concluded, "and Megyn Kelly had an opinion on gay marriage."

Asked Connell: "You're not going to take responsibility for the contents of your show?"

The entire award presentation and interview is available to view below, as broadcast on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor on June 4, 2008.