Fox News has published a one-sided profile of bigoted anti-gay marriage activists written by the Associated Press, without offering any comments or input from same-sex marriage supporters. The 1400-word article, “For gay marriage opponents, moments shape minds,” which was widely syndicated in dozens if not hundreds of local publications by the A.P., profiles six anti-equality advocates – Minnesota missionary John Tolo, North Carolina’s Jennifer Cockerham, April Brown of Lewisville, Texas, Tim Arensmeier, pastor at the Sonoma Valley Community Church in Sonoma, California, and Mary and Rob Robertson of Damascus, Maryland — but no same-sex marriage supporters.
The article does not attempt to refute or correct or offer any alternate opinions — much less any facts — but includes anti-equality comments and bigoted, ignorant opinions like:
Many say that while their opposition to gay marriage begins with a reading of the Bible, it is confirmed by the challenges and observations of everyday life in a country whose values they see as crumbling.
… too many children grow up in households where there’s “this fundamental breakdown of having a healthy father role model and a healthy mother role model,” he said. “There’s this major identity issue where men are just missing.”
…Â while he supports the idea of some kind of legal recognition for same-sex couples, marriage is a sacred template for raising and caring for children as God intended. For government to try to broaden marriage risks undermining that, while infringing on the rights of Christians to define their own institutions.
“It’s like saying Muslim women should no longer be allowed to wear burkas. To me, that’s deeply offensive…”
“It’s almost like the government wants to come and rewrite the Bible and, to me, that’s a position that I don’t think the government should take.”
And this passage:
“My first encounter, personally, with a homosexual was when I had a patient who tried to commit suicide” after an argument with a lover, said Cockerham, who lives in Kernersville, N.C. “I felt really sorry for him because he had almost succeeded with the suicide attempt and I felt that he had so much more to live for than that particular lifestyle that had brought him there.”
Visiting a daughter at college near San Francisco, she was dismayed by the openness of gay and lesbian couples.
“I know that made me feel uncomfortable and also made me feel concerned with the fact that they just needed the Lord. I felt they needed a heavenly father who could love them and teach them differently,” she says.
On the night of the North Carolina vote, Cockerham stayed up until 1:30 a.m. watching reports of the results that were a fulfillment of her prayers.
And this one:
Until a few years ago, Brown said she was heading toward acceptance of the idea of civil unions for gay couples. But she was troubled after reading about a lawsuit filed by a gay man against the eHarmony dating site, demanding it provide matchmaking for gays and lesbians. That struck a chord because Brown knew two straight couples who had met through eHarmony and gotten married. While same-sex couples might argue they had a right to be together, what gave gays or lesbians the right, she wondered, to demand a private business change its ways to suit them?
Brown, who describes herself as conservative, said she became more concerned as demands grew among gay-rights advocates for a right to marriage, which she regards as a religious institution.
“I just began kind of questioning, what do they really want?” she said.
The profile ends with this:
“I can just tell you that the confusion that is happening in our world in terms of morality will just wreak havoc for years down the road,” Mary Robertson said. “My children, we have to explain the whole situation about homosexuals and lesbians and my son just says to me, ‘Do I have to decide who I like?'”
Robertson and others who oppose gay marriage say they’re concerned they’ll be labeled as extremists, when what they want is to protect their families and institutions.
“I just want you to know that we love everyone,” she said. “But there’s rightly ordered things in our lives, and if you look at a man’s body and a woman’s body, those two bodies fit together perfectly. And that’s what God intended.”
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