Fox reporter to John Legend: Shut up about civil rights because ID laws make more blacks vote

Fox News correspondent Jesse Watters suggestion on Monday that singer John Legend had been wrong to complain about civil rights during his Oscars speech because black voter participation had gone up after Republican-controlled legislatures made it tougher to vote.

The hosts of Outnumbered -- like almost every Fox News show -- dedicated a segment on Monday to expressing outrage over the "liberal" viewpoints expressed during Sunday night's Academy Award broadcast.

The segment began with clips of actress Patricia Arquette calling for equal pay for women, filmmakers warning about NSA spying, jokes about the need for immigration reform and actor John Legend's speech on the need for the Civil Rights movement to push forward.

“We know that the Voting Rights Act that they fought for 50 years ago is being compromised now in this country today,” Legend had said after winning Best Original Song for the movie Selma. “Right now the struggle for freedom and justice is real.”

Clearly disappointed, Fox News host Harris Faulkner sighed and called Oscar speeches "bizarre."

"It was a lot of politics last night," Watters opined. "A few things. On Patricia Arquette, I don't think it's very brave to get up there on the soapbox and talk about wage equality when your dress costs $3,000 and you work about two months out of the year. I also think it would have been a little braver of her to talk about maybe women being enslaved by ISIS if she really wants to take a stand."

"On John Legend, I think he talked about voter ID and discrimination," the Fox News correspondent continued. "I just want to fact check there, a lot of the states that passed voter ID laws, black voter participation has actually gone up. So, I don't even think that's true."

Actress and Fox News contributor Stacy Dash argued that any actress who complains about wage inequality should give her wages to the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) so that it could be "redistributed."

"It just reeks of that whole white privilege thing," co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle scoffed. "Everything is just punishing, nothing is celebrating all the successes and advancements we have in this country. And I agree with you, Jesse, why don't you talk about ISIS and Sharia law that's condoning genital mutilation and disfigurement of women?"

"I miss the fact that there's not elegance and class and majesty," Dash lamented. "It's gone."

Co-host Andrea Tantaros argued that Arquette should have talked "about the misogyny in Hollywood."

"But you know what, that would have taken real courage," Tantaros asserted. "For Patricia Arquette to stand there and call out the men in the audience that have tried to get her on the casting couch, and all these stories. That's real bravery."

Faulkner found it suspicious that The Grand Budapest Hotel won more Oscars than American Sniper.

"Maybe it is the 'American' in the title," she declared. "Right? I'm not sure."

"For American Sniper, like American imperialism and exceptionalism and American killing machine," Guilfoyle agreed.

A nonpartisan congressional study released last year found that states which passed voter ID laws saw disproportionately lower minority turnout in 2012.

Watch the video below from Fox News' Outnumbered, broadcast Feb. 23, 2015.