Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Proof that gay relationships normal an argument against them?

The AP article is titled "Julie, Hillary Goodridge To Divorce, Couple Led Gay Marriage Fight In Massachusetts". The article says that:

"BOSTON — A lesbian couple who led the fight for gay marriage in Massachusetts has filed for divorce. Julie and Hillary Goodridge were among seven gay couples who filed a lawsuit that led to a court ruling making Massachusetts the first state to legalize same-sex marriages in 2004. The couple became the public face of the debate in the state and married the first day same-sex marriages became legal."

Though the reporting is fairly straightforward, its incredibly odd to see this as national news. The biggest forum it had achieved before the AP today was local LGBT newspaper. What then is the impetus for making a story out of these womens' relationship? It feels to me that the implication and tone of this article implies that the divorce of these two women is somehow indicative of the unsustainability of gay marriages. Shouldn't it show that gay marriages are normal and have the same problems that straight ones do? This certainly qualifies at the most as passive conservative bias, both in story tone and the fact that the AP decided to make it a national news story in the first place, but the AP has been known to have a noticeable conservative bias before.

Talk me down here folks!

1 comment:

Sarah said...

I think this country needs a complete overhaul of a lot of things, including archaic marriage laws. Civil laws regarding couples that affect taxes, insurance, social security, etc. should be equally applied regardless of sexual orientation.
I'm not sure if we should change the name of legal marriage to something other than marriage, since people get so hung up on the term.

Religious ceremonies, rituals etc. should be a separate and personal event. If a religion wants to exclude gay union, that is their business. I think our society gets caught up with the word marriage, and all of the subconscious, evocative images of what that means. This is especially true for conservative Christians. But then again if you want to get all biblical about it, you find that polygamy is rampant in Old Testament, and King David had a few issues with fidelity and integrity.