California Voters to Decide on Same-Sex 'Marriage' – Where's the Media?

The liberal media were quick to trumpet the California Supreme Court's decision to allow same-sex “marriage” last month, but were virtually silent about the news that California residents will have the opportunity to overturn that decision come November.

California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced yesterday that a petition to have a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman had received enough signatures to qualify as a ballot initiative in the upcoming November election.

Only the June 3 broadcast of Good Morning America noted the important development.  There was no mention on any of the network newscasts June 2, and neither the CBS Early Show nor NBC's Today mentioned the story.  GMA's Deborah Roberts reported the story at the beginning of the program.

The Associated Press posted a story early on June 3.

Both GMA's story and the Associated Press piece note that “enough signatures” were gathered and verified to ensure the petition is included on the ballot.  While that statement is factually true it doesn't tell the full story.  California law requires a petition to have 694,354 signatures to be included on a ballot.  According to a press release issued by the California Family Council, 1,120,801 signatures were submitted.

In other words, what the mainstream press who bothered to report the story failed to note was that at least one million people in California think the decision reached by four state Supreme Court judges is wrong.  Both also failed to report that recent a recent poll shows Californians support a constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman.

Kristen Fyfe is senior writer at the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the MediaResearchCenter.