6.24.2003

I can only hope nobody who reads the Washington Times takes it seriously

This Times story about Howard Dean's entry into the presidential race is simply awful. It's a hateful gay-bashing piece that purports to be news, but instead focuses on the minor yet divisive issue of whether homosexual couples who marry in Canada should receive the same domestic-partner benefits as male-female couples.

Dean did not even say that he would press for such a law via Congress, but that he would urge states to adopt such a law, as has his home state of Vermont.

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean yesterday said that if elected he would press every state to recognize the rights of American homosexual couples who "marry" in Canada.

The former Vermont governor was the first to highlight same-sex "marriage" as a political issue when he signed a law recognizing it through civil unions in his state...

[...]

"Unless the American people rise up to defend this indispensable institution, we could lose marriage in a very short time," Mr. Connor said in a statement.
And the kicker:
 President Bush does not support civil unions or same-sex "marriage."
So, we've got "marriage" and "marry" in "quotes" throughout the entire story, to illustrate the fact that this newspaper thinks that homosexual unions are a sham that don't even deserve the full connotations of the word "marriage." As if simply using the unquoted word marriage in conjunction with homosexuals somehow cheapens the word.

Then, we've got the requisite insane quote from a crazy man who thinks "we could lose marriage in a very short time." Which is to say, he thinks marriage will go away just because some gays are doing it in Canada. Abso. Lutely. Fucking. Insane. This is not a valid source for this story; yes, it's an opposing viewpoint, but it's an irrational one without any supporing facts, and printing this quote is irresponsible at best.

And then, finally, the re-affirmation at the end, the complete pulled-it-out-of-my-ass non-sequiter: President Bush does not support same-sex unions. This story had nothing to do with Bush up until this point, where the Times thought it would be prudent to point out that, hey, our President that we support hates fags. That should have been the subhead: "Unlike Bush, Dean loves fags." It would have fit on top of this story.

Fine, we expect this kind of behavior from the Times. But I happen to be watching All The President's Men on TV right now, and it reminds me of how disappointed I am in the Post these days as well. We've come a long way from the days of Woodward and Bernstein uncovering Watergate. Over the past few months the Post has kowtowed to the President and neglected to ask the tough questions about WMD intelligence and Iraq's connections to al Qaeda that even I, non-journalist James, was asking. They're not living up to their legacy down there.

Political-blog portion over. Now returning to regularly scheduled hatred.

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