It was a big week for homosexual activists. In outlets across the broadcast, cable and print spectrums, the Democratic presidential debate on homosexual issues and the alleged “financial clout” of the gay community got the royal treatment from the liberal media elite.
However, the media virtually ignored a crucially important related story, a Quinnipiac poll showing that in the three most important electoral “swing states,” endorsements from homosexual groups could cost candidates the election.
The Quinnipiac story was completely misrepresented in the Reuters wire service headline, which read “Gay Endorsements Have Scant Impact on U.S. Voters.” In reality, according to Peter Brown, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, who posted an article on The Politico August 8, “…polls of voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania – the big three Electoral College swing states – found voters by large margins more likely to see the endorsement of a gay rights group as a reason to vote against, rather than for, a candidate.” Brown also wrote that in all three states “sizeable majorities of voters said they believe that homosexual behavior is “morally wrong” rather than “morally acceptable.”
The fact that this study's findings were either misrepresented or unreported by the mainstream media is no surprise. How can you say a gay endorsement would hurt a candidate and then spend so much time promoting a gay-themed debate among the Democratic presidential candidates? The existence of a televised gay-issues debate does speak to the “mainstreaming” of homosexuality, but is that because so many people are invested in the issue, or because the well-monied homosexual lobby is the darling not only of the Democrats but also the liberal media?
The “big” news of the week was the Democratic debate on gay issues sponsored by the homosexual activist group Human Rights Campaign and aired on the gay-themed LOGO network (owned by Viacom). While most of the American public could not watch the debate because LOGO is not widely available, the mainstream media covered it heavily on August 10. Diane Sawyer, on Good Morning America, called the debate “a kind of historic moment” while NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, reporting on Today, said it was “unlike anything we have seen in the long political season.”
Each broadcast featured footage from the debate, hosted by lesbian singer Melissa Etheridge. ABC's coverage included a sound bite from candidate John Edwards, who reminded debate attendees and viewers of his spat with conservative columnist Ann Coulter. “I think what Ann Coulter does is the worst kind of public discourse,” said Edwards, referring to an incident this past spring when Coulter referred to Edwards using a term deemed derogatory by homosexuals.
NBC presented Barack Obama likening his experience as a child of an interracial couple with the campaign for same-sex “marriage.” “It would have been illegal for them to be married in a number of states in the south. This is something I understand intimately,” Obama said.
Both Today and Good Morning America included sound bites from Hillary Clinton regarding her husband's “don't ask, don't tell” policy for gays in the military.
Major newspapers covered the debate in depth. The New York Times said the six participating Democratic candidates (Senators Joe Biden and Chris Dodd did not participate) “broke new ground,” while The Washington Post reported that the debate “underscored the increasing importance on the (gay) constituency to the Democratic Party.” USA Today reported that the candidates' “positions and the televised forum itself underscored the progress of gay voters toward mainstream politics.”
All of this hoopla for roughly 4 percent of voters, according to a graphic accompanying the story in
The August 13 issue of Newsweek played a similar theme in an article entitled “Show 'Em Whatcha Got.” The piece profiled the homosexual community's “soft spot” for Hillary Clinton while speaking the community's “financial clout.” According to Newsweek, homosexuals are frustrated because Hillary hasn't done much for homosexual rights, specifically same-sex “marriage,” despite their financial support for her.
Also out this week was the “Inaugural Network Responsibility Index” released by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). In this report the gay activist group ranks the broadcast networks on the “quantity, quality and diversity of images of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people on network television.” The story didn't play as broadly in the mainstream media as the LOGO debate did, but it was picked up by CNN, Daily Variety, New York Daily News and the Los Angeles Daily News, as well as the Christian Post.
In a press release announcing the report, GLAAD president Neil G. Giuliano stated, “We have made great strides in the ten years since Ellen DeGeneres came out on television, (but) this report shows where work still needs to be done and which networks are failing to represent millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender viewers.” According to the report no networks received an “excellent” rating. ABC led the networks with “15 percent of its primetime programming hours inclusive of LGBT representations” while Fox came in last with only 6 percent.
Note to Giuliano and GLAAD: There are many more millions of conservatives in the viewing audience than there are LGBT viewers. It is highly unlikely their representation is anywhere near 6 percent on any network. If they complained about it, or released their own “Network Responsibility Index,” they'd be chastised and ridiculed.
Kristen Fyfe is senior writer at the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the
