Posted on 08/20/2002 11:40:05 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
Publishing engagement and wedding announcements of gay and lesbian "marriages" now a standard feature in at least 70 U.S newspapers, will now be policy for the New York Times as well, and the Time's embrace of the new policy has gladdened the hearts of Glaad - the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination, which now plans to increase pressure on all of America's newspapers to follow suit.
Coinciding with the Times' policy change, Glaad said Monday it plans to launch a campaign to double to 140 the number of U.S. daily newspapers that publish gay and lesbian "commitment notices," according to New York's Newsday
"What we're basically saying is we believe it's an issue of fairness to print same-sex union announcements in the paper," John Sonego, director of communications for GLAAD told Newsday. Glaad executives met with the Times about 3 1/2 weeks ago to urge the paper to amend its policy. "We'll make similar presentations and similar arguments with other newspapers around the country," Sonego added.
Glaad said about 70 daily newspapers run the announcements, including the Washington Post, Miami Herald and Chicago Tribune which, like Newsday, is owned by the Tribune Co. Concerning Newsday's policy, Managing Editor Charlotte Hall said, "We have no prohibition on announcing same-sex unions, but we have not received any requests. We would consider such a request."
The Boston Globe, a paper owned by The New York Times Co., does not publish such announcements, but says that the current policy is under review.
Steve Wright, an assistant managing editor at The San Jose Mercury News told Newsday his paper has run the notices since 1992, adding that the policy for same-sex union announcements is the same as for heterosexual couples: that some kind of public ceremony must be involved. He said he's unsure of the exact number of announcements, but the paper runs a handful of same-sex union notices a year.
"When we first did it, we did get some lettered debate, both pro and con, but it's really been a non-issue for a long, long time," Wright told Newsday. "Everybody recognized that they were committed relationships. It wasn't a big issue when we decided to do it."
The Times' new policy requires same-sex couples to meet one of two stipulations: they must celebrate the commitment in a public ceremony, or that they enter into a legally recognized civil union or have their domestic partnership registered, Newsday observed.
So far only Vermont recognizes civil unions, but some local governments, such as New York City, offer registration of domestic partnerships. A Times spokesman told Newsday Monday that the paper had received a "small number" of phone calls and e-mails "evenly divided" between those supportive and against the policy change.
Keith Woods, a faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based journalism think tank, told Newsday that the Times' new policy is just one example of the kinds of barriers that have fallen in journalism through the years, and that it could lead to other papers following suit.
"I think that the dispute over same-sex unions tends to be a local issue, dictated by the politics of the community and not so much by the politics of the newspaper," Woods told Newsday "So many people view the issue through a religious lens, a moral lens or a civil-rights lens, depending on where you're standing."
The Times' may now find itself running announcements of pending homosexual unions between its own staffers if Timesman Rick Berke's observation that at any editorial meeting at the paper, about three-quarters of those present are openly gay.
Gee, I wonder why the news is so skewered toward these deviants?
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