Tricia Romano scours the mainstream media's coverage of last week's decision to legalize gay marriage in California. Here are the highs and lows
After an election cycle where the gay marriage issue took a backseat to the war in Iraq and the floundering economy, gay activists suddenly found themselves in the national news again with the California supreme court’s landmark ruling that state laws banning same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, opening the door for gays and lesbians to wed. The nation’s biggest newspapers gave the story heavy play -- The New York Times ran 17 stories in under a week, including an editorial heralding the ruling as “A Victory for Equality and Justice.”
The Los Angeles Times ran a half-page above-the-fold spread, while inside an interview with San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom practically shouted, “Neener, neener, we told you soooo.” A key quote from the mayor, who was heralded then outcast for pushing the issue during an election year, with many blaming the 2004 Democratic loss on the mobilization of antigay conservatives at the ballot box: “If I had told my fiancee, 'I want to civil-union you,' she would have looked at me cross-eyed. She would have said, 'I thought you wanted to marry me.' "
Asked about a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage that could trump the judges' ruling, which is likely to qualify for the November ballot, Newsom told the The New York Times , “It's no longer denying something to people that they never had. It's taking something away that they've already enjoyed. And that's a much more difficult thing to do.''
The Wall Street Journal heralded the ruling as the “most important legal victory to date for proponents of same-sex marriage.”
The Baltimore Sun ran the editorial “Untying the Not," which carried the subhead "Our view: California lifts a barrier that Maryland should as well.” In discussing Maryland's state marriage benefits, one passage reads, “Marriage offers -- by at least one estimate -- more than 400 such rights. Prohibiting marriage, but cobbling together equivalent rights one by one, is not a sensible long-term solution to discrimination. California has taken a better route.”
The editorial points out that the California court compared “the situation to interracial marriage, which that state also used to prohibit -- until the justices struck down that law 60 years ago.” Sadly, the editors speculate that such legislation won’t see the light of day in that state till the next decade.
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