GLAAD (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) issued a “Call to Action” on April 7 urging its members to “hold CNN accountable” for a segment that allowed someone other than a gay rights activist to talk about homosexuality.
CNN's Kyra Phillips spoke with California Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal and former homosexual Richard Cohen about the possible repeal of a California law that required the State Department of Mental Health to research the “causes” and “cures” of homosexuality during a April 6 “Newsroom” segment.
GLAAD claimed “the segment tried to give the appearance of 'balance,'” but complained that the segment was “unacceptable” because of “the airtime afforded the disreputable Cohen to tout 'healing' gay people, coupled with a lack of information about the harm caused by such practices.”
GLAAD should realize that it can't win them all. The truth is that CNN has a history of airing unbalanced reports about homosexual issues – most of which favor proponents of gay rights. The organization even recently gave the network two separate awards for it's “excellence” and its “outstanding” segments regarding gay issues.
Since Jan. 1, the Culture and Media Institute and its sister site, Newsbusters.org, have documented CNN's unwillingness to provide both sides of the gay rights debate.
Within days after President Barack Obama reiterated his pledge to repeal the current military policy of banning openly gay citizens from serving in the
Nothing was said in the reports about the effect open homosexuality in the military could have on troop cohesion, morale and readiness.
CNN showed the same pro-gay agenda bias in reports on same-sex marriage.
The network aired a lopsided report on March 6 about the Catholic Charities of Washington's decision to cut benefits for spouses of new employees in the wake of
Correspondent Kate Bolduan featured four soundbites in her report – all from proponents of same-sex marriage, in addition to omitting the liberal affiliation of one of the Catholic groups represented. As reported on Newsbusters, Bolduan “did read the excerpt from the Archdiocese of Washington's statement, but she couldn't seem to find any orthodox Catholics who would vouch for the Church's teaching on marriage and sexuality.”
And on March 16, CNN aired a two-hour documentary about the “gender reassignment” of Steven Stanton, the former city manager of
CMI noted that the network “gave a grand total of 47 seconds to those opposed to sex change” and “the rest of the two hours was focused on presenting sex change as if it weren't a choice.”
“During the entire two-hour documentary,” reported CMI, “no biologists were interviewed about the physical consequences of changing sexes. No psychologists were interviewed about the mental and emotional ramifications of having sex-change operations, or of being raised by a transgender parent.”
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