Sexuality

NPR's Ari Shapiro did little to conceal his slant towards same-sex "marriage" on Thursday's Morning Edition, as he reported on the Defense Department granting limited benefits to the same-sex partners of members of the military. Shapiro hyped that supposedly, "as a political move, the Pentagon's action is barely controversial."

The openly-homosexual correspondent later asserted that "it's hard to tell whether President Obama's pro-gay positions are helping to create this wave [of support for homosexuals in the military], or just letting him surf it." He also lined up three left-leaning talking heads during his report, versus only one social conservative pundit.

It was huge news. A map targeting those with opposing viewpoints led to a tragic attack. Partisan rhetoric was out of control and fringe-types were being driven to gun commit gun crimes. Except that, in the case of the Gabby Giffords shooting two years ago, none of those things were even remotely true. But that didn’t stop the media from breathlessly conjecturing that a target-festooned map on Sarah Palin’s website had pointed Jared Loughner to Rep. Giffords, and that Palin’s “reload” rhetoric made him shoot.

But now we have a case in which a politically motivated shooter has confessed to choosing his targets according to a map. In fact, it was a “hate map” created by the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). But ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN aren’t talking.

Leave it to liberal host Martin Bashir to bring on the president of Planned Parenthood to trash individuals with religious objections to the ObamaCare contraception mandate.  Speaking with Cecile Richards on February 6, Bashir conducted a Planned Parenthood advocacy session rather than an actual interview.And, naturally, Bashir failed to bring on an opposing viewpoint either in the same segment or a subsequent one.

Indeed, during the chat with Richards -- who was a fixture at the Lean Forward network during last year's "war on women" meme -- Bashir acted as cheerleader for the nation's largest abortion provider. "In yet another sign of his willingness to respect religious convictions, the president has amended the Affordable Care Act in relation to the availability of birth control," Bashir insisted, puffing the president as a magnanimous compromiser when it has been the president's own administration that has put religious organizations into a needless dilemma regarding their First Amendment freedoms in the first place.

Update (18:53 EST): The Post article in question was updated at 6:35 p.m. to reflect the SPLC connection (see below) | The man who critically injured a Family Research Center security staffer in a shooting last August pleaded guilty on Wednesday to, among other charges, "committing an act of terrorism with the intent to kill." the Associated Press and ABC affiliate WJLA today are reporting. What's more, the suspect in question admitted he was inspired to strike out at the FRC after visiting a liberal website which declared them an anti-gay hate group. That fact,however, was omitted by the Washington Post in their write-up on the story.

Floyd Lee Corkins, "who had been volunteering at a center for gay, lesbian and transgender people"  was apprehended with a handgun, two extra magazines of ammunition and sandwiches from Chick-fil-A, that latter of which he "intended to smear... in the faces of his victims to make a statement about gay rights opponents, [Corkins] acknowledged during a hearing Wednesday," WJLA.com reported on Wednesday afternoon.

CNN anchors dropped journalistic integrity and went into full attack mode against supporters of the ban on gay Boy Scouts on Wednesday morning.

When the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins questioned why the Scouts should change their long-standing policy, anchor Soledad O'Brien blurted out "Because it's discriminatory," before adding "Because they think it's discriminatory." She then asked "My final question for you, do you worry you are on the wrong side of history on this?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin compared the push for the Boy Scouts to accept gays to the struggle over interracial marriage and same-sex marriage. She slammed any ban on gay scouts, local or national, as "discrimination," on Tuesday afternoon's Newsroom.

"They've been arguing that, Brooke, for years. If you let a black person marry a white person society will end. If you let gay and lesbian couples marry, society will end. That's an argument that has failed time and time again. And so to argue that we should discriminate because you want the Boy Scouts of America to survive is just a bunch of nonsense," Hostin told anchor Brooke Baldwin. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's message to the Boy Scouts is this: "the world" is becoming more accepting of same-sex marriage, and the Scouts should get with the times by accepting openly gay leaders. Anchor Carol Costello made that clear on Tuesday morning's Newsroom.

"And like it or not, children are exposed to gay people. Ever watch 'Modern Family' or 'Ellen' or hear NFL players speak out for same-sex marriage? The world is changing. And the question now: will the Boy Scouts change with it?" Costello argued. Of course, CNN helps facilitate that "change" by giving NFL players -- who wish to "harness this Super Bowl media" to push for "marriage equality" -- air time to push for same-sex marriage unopposed. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN thinks the Super Bowl has become "a platform for the culture wars," but they are using that "platform" to support causes like gay marriage.

The morning after the Super Bowl, CNN's openly-gay anchor Don Lemon interviewed gay rights activist and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo and thanked him for his work. No guest from the other side was brought on.

Opening a segment today on the Obama administration's latest overture to assuage concerns of religious organizations about the ObamaCare contraception mandate, MSNBC host Alex Wagner came out swinging with a patently false assertion that survives as a liberal meme to this day.  "The great 2012 debate over women's health concerns begot all-male hearings on contraception and a national smear campaign directed at a Georgetown Law student," Wagner noted as she introduced a clip of Rush Limbaugh's criticism of Fluke's "testimony" last February before the House Democrats' steering and policy committee.

But in point of fact, the Feb. 16, 2012 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearings did include two women who testified on the issue of religious freedom and the ObamaCare mandate. Both of them, Dr. Allison Dabbs Garrett and Laura Champion, M.D., voiced no moral objection to birth control per se, but testified rather in opposition to the mandate and how it would force their schools to cover abortifacient drugs like Plan B.

Leave it to MSNBC’s openly gay host Thomas Roberts to not let facts get in the way of a good story in service of pushing a pro-same-sex agenda.  On the January 29 edition of MSNBC Live, Roberts brought on a gay couple from Kentucky to promote their efforts to obtain a  marriage license in the Bluegrass State.

Roberts, who has segments nearly every day promoting gay marriage, began this segment in his typical biased manner:

It's not very often that a federal judge begins a ruling by saying that "Sometimes even a person with excellent vision does not see the forest for the trees." That happened yesterday in a case involving former First District Democratic Congressman and sore loser Steve Driehaus, whose district mostly comprised the western two-thirds of Cincinnati's Hamilton County. Yet it's not news at Gannett's Cincinnati Enquirer -- or anywhere else, for that matter.

After his 2010 defeat at the hands of Republican Steve Chabot, Driehaus sued the Susan B. Anthony List in federal court  for defamation and -- get this -- "loss of livelihood." Why? Because, during that campaign, SBAL told Driehaus's constituents -- correctly, it has since been proven -- that his vote for ObamaCare was a betrayal of his pro-life principles. Yesterday, despite his obvious conflict of interest as former president and director of the Planned Parenthood Association of Cincinnati, Judge Timothy Black, a Barack Obama appointee, found a way to do what he should have done in the first place, and rejected Driehaus's nonsense. 

In a Wednesday Salon column which should be saved onto the hard drives of everyone in the pro-life movement as a reminder of the fundamental evil of their opposition, Mary Elizabeth Williams stated why, to her, it doesn't matter that abortion involves the taking of a human life: "I believe that life starts at conception. And it's never stopped me from being pro-choice."

The establishment press has consistently refused to apply the "pro-life" label to a movement which has always been not only about ending abortion, but about respecting and protecting human life from conception to natural death. I believe that refusal has occurred because many reporters share Ms. Williams's brutal, strongly held but rarely expressed beliefs articulated after the jump. The Salon staff writer proves that her side richly deserves to be called "anti-life" -- because that's what they are (bolds are mine throughout this post):

Leave it to MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts to attempt to smear the pro-life movement on the day of the March for Life with a misleading story about a law introduced in New Mexico regarding abortion. Roberts erroneously reported on a New Mexico state legislator named Cathrynn Brown, who, “introduced a bill that would force rape victims to carry their babies to term and their babies would be used as evidence during a court trial… Under the bill, a rape victim who had an abortion would be thrown in jail for tampering with evidence.”

Roberts brought on Pat Davis, the Executive Director of Progress Now in New Mexico to bash the bill, which, by the way, Roberts completely mischaracterized. What the bill actually would do is make it a crime for a rapist to pressure his victim into undergoing an abortion.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

Joe Scarborough was a voice in the politically-correct wilderness this morning on the subject of women in combat.  On today's Morning Joe, as other panelists voiced unerring if occasionally cautious support for the Pentagon's decision to permit women in combat, Scarborough sounded a stern warning note.

"I'll be damned; if we find out that the Pentagon is lowering standards for politically-correct reasons, then you know what? Then the blood of dead Americans in future battles will be on their hands." View the video after the jump.

Well, this will teach President Obama’s speech writers to double check their pander list. It seems his special shout-out to gays in his inaugural speech – though widely praised by the Left as a “historic” moment – just wasn’t enough. Not for the Huffington Post and the parents of 11-year-old ‘Sadie,’ who is “transgender” (a boy pretending to be a girl). Obama needed to call out for transgender rights as well. 

HuffPo’s “Gay Voices” page reported that Sadie corrected the oversight, writing a second speech. Sadie’s mother put it on Face Book, it hit Twitter and, according the “Gay Voices” Editor Noah Michelson “It’s totally gone viral.” 

The producer of CNN's Belief Blog lauded President Obama as "exceptional" and a "religious pioneer" for supporting same-sex marriage and hosting his inaugural prayer service at National Cathedral.

"Well, I think it's part of what makes Obama exceptional. We think of him as a racial pioneer, the first African-American president, but I think he's also a religious pioneer," John Blake said of the choice of National Cathedral, which made headlines for announcing it will conduct same-sex marriage ceremonies. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

As MSNBC marked the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Andrea Mitchell continued the MSNBC tradition of praising the abortion rights movement and harassing the pro-life movement.  On her January 22 program, Mitchell treated Sarah Weddington, the attorney in Roe v. Wade to a cream puff of an interview, while Marjorie Dannenfelser, the head of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, was grilled.

Dannenfelser was the first pro-life guest on MSNBC's programming on Tuesday, the 40th anniversary of Roe. By contrast, by the 1 p.m. Eastern hour, pro-choice advocates had appeared on various MSNBC programs, all to sympathetic interviewers. Among these guests were Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, current NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan and former NARAL chief Kate Michelman.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

According to Lena Dunham, HBO’s “Girls” television show needs a third season to explore new sex positions. 

Writer and actress Lena Dunham appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Thursday to discuss her recent Golden Globe awards earned from her work with “Girls.” 

In yet another attempt to inject her liberal bias into a discussion on abortion, NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell insisted that pro-life Americans call themselves "anti-abortion" instead because the latter term is "more value neutral."   Speaking on her MSNBC show Wednesday afternoon with Republican strategist Juleanna Glover, Ms. Mitchell decided that Glover’s self-identification as pro-life was inappropriate. 

Mitchell, who consistently brings on abortion activists to rail against conservatives who are pro-life, told Ms. Glover that she is in fact anti-abortion, “To use the term that I think is more value neutral.”  Ms. Glover who called herself deeply pro-life failed to challenge Ms. Mitchell on her categorization of the pro-life movement and instead when on a lengthy diatribe criticizing the Republican Party for many of its pro-life positions.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

She had 12 paragraphs to play with, but in none of them did Washington Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein find any space for a conservative Episcopalian or Anglican to voice objection to the decision by Episcopal authorities to permit same-sex wedding ceremonies in the historic Washington National Cathedral in Northwest Washington, D.C.

"In some ways, the announcement that is expected Wednesday morning is unsurprising for a denomination and a diocese that long ago took up the cause of marriage equality," Boorstein noted in the second paragraph of her January 9 story, but added that "the cathedral's stature and the image of same-sex couples exchanging vows in the soaring Gothic structure... is symbolically powerful."

Well, there goes any chance that MSNBC might have resolved to drop the phony "war on women" meme in the new year. On the January 3 NewsNation fill-in host Alex Witt interviewed Kate Pickert to push for greater abortion access across the nation, discussing her cover story for the January 14 print edition of TIME magazine, which is pegged to the forthcoming 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. "40 years ago, abortion-rights activists won an epic victory with Roe v. Wade," blares the cover headline, adding, "They've been losing ever since."

The segment itself was more of an advocacy spot than an actual interview with Witt acting as cheerleader for the abortion rights movement.  Witt introduced the segment calling the article a “fascinating, comprehensive great article”, that “really gets right to the heart of the issue.”  Ms. Witt followed her fawning over the article by asking Pickert, “What do you think it’s going to take to get abortion rights back on track and not deny it from those who need it?”  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

Most of the January 2 front page for The Washington Post was devoted to the resolution of the so-called fiscal cliff, but editors made sure to leave space for a gauzy 33-paragraph story entitled "History at the altar: Maryland sees wave of same-sex weddings as law takes effect."

By contrast, an uplifting story involving a non-controversial religious tradition in African-American churches was shuffled to the bottom of page A2, despite the tremendous historical significance of the 2012 New Year's Eve "watch night" celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Does anyone in the media ever attempt to read and understand the speeches of Pope Benedict? The New York Daily News account of his December 21 speech to the curia (the “Vatican bureaucracy”) is being mangled by the Daily Kos into “Pope gives special holiday hate speech against gays because it's Christmas.” The Mediaite headline (off London’s Daily Mail) is “Merry Christmas? Pope Benedict XVI Denounces Gay Marriage As A ‘Manipulation Of Nature’.”

Someone who reads the original would find the term “gay marriage” is missing, although there is a defense of traditional marriage. He denounced the idea that one's gender is not a fact, but a social construct. The pope was also taking on the notion that in the broader culture, men and women are afraid of making lifelong commitments:

Far-left MSNBC weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry is no fan of marriage. The whole business is simply an act of “conspicuous consumption under the guise of tradition and love," she scoff. But the cynical feminist in her finds herself reduced to a “mushy mess when it comes to two fantastic people finding genuine happiness – and deciding to celebrate.” But that couple in question, naturally, is a same-sex couple, one half of which is, wait for it, transgendered.

Stephen Colbert lent his Comedy Central television platform on Thursday to one of the left's favorite religious figures, Sister Simone Campbell, to promote her ongoing battle against Rep. Paul Ryan's fiscal ideas. Campbell slammed congressional conservatives to the extreme point of hinting that they would have treated the Holy Family worse than the innkeepers in Bethlehem [audio clips available here; video below the jump]:

As I argued yesterday, the Advent season is exploited every year by the liberal media to tweak faithful Christians, using the holidays as a hook for liberal political and religious themes or to advance ancient heresies. Ditto with the Lenten season.

Well, the latest example comes from David Gibson of the Religion News Service, who has picked up on a new complaint from a feminist scholar, Margaret Miles, which boils down to essentially this: How come we never see depictions of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the baby Jesus. I kid you not.