« Go back a post || Return to G-A-Y homepage || Haul tail to next post »
03/17/2011
Traditional journalism needs to stop the 'traditional marriage' rhetoric
This is how WVLA, Baton Rouge's NBC affiliate, covered Tony Perkins recent speaking engagement at LSU:
These folks are protesting simply because Tony supports "traditional marriage"? Uhm, no. They're protesting because Tony Perkins is someone who paints the national gay rights conversation as a battle of "good versus evil," and who goes into churches and tells congregants that his political opponents are "held captive by the enemy." A man who wrote that this nation's Commander in Chief is "willing to jeopardize our nation’s security to advance the agenda of the radical homosexual lobby," simply because of the president's push for DADT repeal. A man who claimed that gay teens kill themselves because they know, at heart, that they are "abnormal." A man who writes that same-sex marriage will be "opening the door to all manner of moral and social evil." And worst of all: A man who uses every media tool available to encourage others to follow his lead.
Saying Tony Perkins is simply supportive of "traditional marriage" would be like the local sportscaster calling the Super Bowl a semi-popular scrimmage.
And beyond just the man himself: Tony heads an organization where subordinates have called for gays' criminalization and/or deportation, printed brochures that liken same-sex marriage to men having sex with horses, used grim reaper graphics to illustrate what non-discrimination will supposedly do to America, and recruited even more incendiary figures like Bryan Fischer to speak on their pet issues. Actions that have landed FRC on the Southern Poverty Law Center's "hate groups" list -- a list that the conservatives love to paint as broad and unfair, but one that is, in truth, highly selective. It doesn't take a long search to see why FRC was able to exceed the SPLC's high bar.
Look, we fully agree with Tony: The American public should debate his words and actions vs. our own. So for that to happen, the American media needs to start accurately presented his side of this conversation!
Your thoughts
comments powered by Disqus
