Friday, July 17, 2009

Same-Sex Marriage Announcement Fracas

When the Elkhart Truth published a same-sex wedding announcement for Micheal Berkey and James Chapin earlier this week, Hoosier fundies went bananas. The couple plan to be married July 25th in Iowa.

It didn't take long for the American Family Association of Indiana to start spinning and spreading lies. The group sent out an action alert to their sheep suggesting that the paper will soon start printing "anniversary announcements for polygamous marriages" and "incestuous birth announcements." So far the newspaper has stood its ground that same-sex marriage is legal in Iowa.

Well I have to say that same-sex wedding announcements never occurred to me. The paper absolutely did the right thing in publishing the announcement, in my opinion and if I owned a newspaper, I would publish them as well. However, I must say that I feel for small town newspaper owners put in this position. Even if the owner / editor is pro gay marriage, being asked to publish these announcements puts them in one hell of a bad spot. As you can see from the Huffington Post piece, the evangelical nuts will come after you. I'm sure they will try and demand that businesses not advertise with the paper and that people cancel their subscriptions. It wouldn't take much to put a small town paper out of business. That being said, if I were in that position, I still would have published the announcement if asked to do so.

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