Demagogue

That was the oh-so-clever headline this morning on CNN when one of the "newscasters" editorialized about a story about gay families planning on attending the Easter Egg Roll at the White House next week. That's actually all they really said, they only brought up the story as one of their fluffy "isn't that crazy/wrong/awful" stories and commented that they can't believe that gay people are "politicizing" something as pure and innocent as the Easter Egg Roll!!

No discussion of why gay families feel they need the visibility. No second wasted pondering "I wonder why they feel that they need to do this?" No mention of the background on how this story evolved, that Family Pride Coalition and Soulforce encouraged gay families to attend the event, however as soon as anti-gay conservative groups caught wind of it they got really offended-- because they're offended by the very existance of gay parents-- and are accusing gay families of "crashing" the event. (But they're not the ones making this political, right?) No recognition whatsoever from CNN that they are a "news" channel, they don't even make a half-assed attempt to tell more than one side of the story.

Instead, CNN presents a perfect example of the bullshit and publicly acceptable discrimnation gay families face-- what is the implicit message and dictated response? Hey, gay parents, you're not a real family, you're "crashing" an event where you don't belong. Please just accept that whenever your families do anything that we normal families do you're being "political" and making the rest of us uncomfortable. We don't want to think about your second class status at something as holy and authentically Christian as an Easter Egg Roll. (cough, pagan symbols, cough) Especially considering that Jesus wasn't fond of political or radical statemtents against the status quo.

Apparently CNN thinks its in competition with FauxNews. They act more and more like them everyday. How about a little more factual news and a lot less personal opinion delivered by people who are essentially hired for their pretty heads and clear diction.

Also, a note to the Religious Left, this was a great idea-- but you have a lot to learn from the Religious Right in controlling how a story is spun. This story should be about gay, Christian families attending the Egg Roll and anti-gay Christians angrily objecting to their mere existence in the name of Jesus, just like Jesus would have wanted.