Forget Facts, Media Sell Same-Sex 'Marriage' with Emotion
“How sweet it is!”
No, that's not the late, great Jackie Gleason roaring out his signature line from a nightclub in
In a story headlined “Marchers savor marriage ruling, celebrate gay pride,” the Sacramento Bee announced that “Scores of gay rights advocates rallied and marched Friday at the state Capitol – not to lament and protest, but to rejoice.” Why? Because Friday's “second annual Sacramento Dyke March” was “a time to savor history.”
The Bee had nothing on The Washington Post, which shamelessly celebrated D.C.'s Capital Pride Festival. On Friday the Post put the festival on the cover of its Weekend section, with a feature story by staff writer Ellen McCarthy and a headline stating “Pride…brings 200,000 People to the District's gay and lesbian festival.”
In the print version, McCarthy's story was headlined “Proud Crowd” and sported a picture of a gay male dance troupe, the DC Cowboys, clad in tight blue jeans and showing off bare, shaven torsos. Inside were photos of a transvestite and a lesbian rock band, Wicked Jezabel. The online version was headlined “Proud Voices: People Behind the Festival Talk About Why This Is a Special Weekend.”
McCarthy quoted a festival organizer who described past events as “exhilarating.” She went on to “report” that the festival would culminate in “a jubilant, 20-block parade.” How could McCarthy report the mood of the parade before it happened?
The prescient McCarthy also “reported” that the festival would attract a crowd of “…200,000. Or more.” On Monday, the Post declined to report on the size of the crowd, but added helpfully that organizers were “hoping for 200,000 people.” A Media Research Center staffer who observed the parade estimated the crowd at about 30,000, or less than half the size of one of the more poorly attended dead-of-winter D.C. Marches for Life (events covered grudgingly, if at all, by the Post). What's a sixfold overestimate among friends?
The media aren't just feeling emotions, they're using emotions as tools to sell same-sex “marriage” to the average American. Rather than delivering sober-minded analyses of the pros and cons of same-sex “marriage” for all of society, not just for homosexuals, they pulled on heartstrings with up-close-and-personal portrayals of same-sex couples – often rather exceptional same-sex couples.
On Friday, the New York Times showcased a “May-December Love for All Seasons” that ended after 30 years with the death of British writer Christopher Isherwood. The Sunday San Francisco Chronicle ran an article about four couples, one together for 32 years, another for 26. ABC World News Tonight trotted out a couple on Sunday evening, as did CBS Evening News.
Two lesbians in their 80s, together more than 50 years, were interviewed by AP and Reuters, and featured on CBS radio news programs and in the New York Times.
CHEN: Brad, I understand you are the one who proposed to George. Tell me when you did it and how you did it?
ALTMAN: Well, actually George was watching TV and the news flash came on and I dropped to my knees and I said, 'George, will you marry me?' And George said –
TAKEI: Darn it, you beat me to it.
CHEN: You were going to do the same with Brad. Oh.
No matter how journalists feel personally about the homosexual agenda, they have a professional obligation to report the facts. CMI found just two articles in the so-called mainstream media that examined whether same-sex marriage is good for society as a whole, and both of these promoted “gay marriage” by advancing the dubious proposition that same-sex couples have lessons to teach male-female couples about how to get along.
The June 10 New York Times asserts that “same-sex couples have a great deal to teach everyone else about marriage and relationships.” Similarly, the New York Times Magazine of June 15 quotes a professor saying, “Heterosexual couples can learn from gay couples about sharing housework and child care.” Same-sex couples allegedly find it easier to understand their partner's point of view during conflicts. But neither article explains how same-sex couples are supposed to teach straight couples how to think like the opposite sex. The complementarity of male-female marriage is just thrown overboard.
Here are a few facts the media ought to be discussing:
-
Despite the greater ability of same-sex partners to understand each others' points of view, same-sex relationships tend to be short-lived. (Diggs, The Health Risks of Gay Sex, p. 9)
-
Homosexual households are also more prone to domestic violence. For example: “The incidence of domestic violence among gay men is nearly double that in the heterosexual population,” according to D. Island and P. Letellier in Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them (New York: Haworth Press, 1991). A study in the Journal of Social Service Research reported that “slightly more than half of the [lesbians surveyed] reported that they had been abused by a female lover/partner.” (G. Lie and S. Gentlewarrior, “Intimate Violence in Lesbian Relationships: Discussion of Survey Findings and Practice Implications,” No. 15, 1991.)
-
Same-sex “marriage” doesn't just redefine who can be married, it's an attempt to redefine marriage itself. As homosexual writer Michelangelo Signorile put it, “A middle ground might be to fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society's moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution.”(OUT magazine, 1994)
-
How will the “archaic institution” be redefined? Pro-homosexual author Judith Levine: “Because American marriage is inextricable from Christianity, it admits participants as Noah let animals onto the ark. But it doesn't have to be that way. In 1972, the National Coalition of Gay Organizations demanded the repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit regardless of sex or numbers. … Group marriage could comprise any combinations of genders."
-
A new definition of monogamy that excludes fidelity, especially among gay males. In a 1984 study of 156 male couples in relationships lasting 1 to 37 years, researchers McWhirter and Mattison found that only 7 couples had maintained sexual fidelity, and none of the exclusive couples had been together for more than 5 years. (Also, see Diggs, The Health Risks of Gay Sex, p. 8.)
Same-sex 'marriage' offers our friends in the press quite a lot to write about, if they'd just take off those party hats.
