Carson Daly criticized for JetBlue gay joke

The mother of a gay passenger who attempted to subdue hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 on 9/11 has denounced Carson Daly, who joked that gays would not have restrained the JetBlue pilot who went on a bizarre tirade earlier this week.

"No one among his pickup team of fellow passengers was asking, 'Are you straight? Are you gay?' " Alice Hoagland told TMZ Thursday of her rugby-playing son, Mark Bingham. "No one doubted that a guy who weighed 220 and stood 6-foot-4 inches tall -- who could run over a charging opponent on the field -- would be an asset to a desperate group trying to overcome a threat onboard an airliner."

Daly noted on his Los Angeles radio show Wednesday that many of the JetBlue Flight 191 passengers who subdued Capt. Clayton Osbon on Tuesday were en route to a security convention in Las Vegas.

Daly, who also hosts NBC's talent search show "The Voice," joked that had the passengers been headed toward a San Francisco gay pride parade they would not have helped, punctuating the remark with a stereotypical effeminate voice.

"The world has its share of strong, heroic gay men," Hoagland responded. "Gay men in sports uniforms and military uniforms have been winning America's games and fighting America's battles for a long time: quietly, humbly and in the face of vicious bigotry."

Following an outcry over his comments, Daly apologized in a statement to the gay-rights group GLAAD, saying in part, "I've long been a supporter of gay and lesbian rights, and I'm saddened that my comments, however unintentional, offended anyone, specifically members of the LGBT community. The fact that I have hurt anyone is devastating."