By Lornet Turnbull
The Seattle Times
Published on 4/27/2004
Excerpt:
Kelly McBride, ethics faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a St. Petersburg, Fla., school dedicated to teaching and inspiring journalists, said that by publishing these announcements, newspapers aren’t making a statement about the legality of gay marriage.
“There are a lot of people about whose marriage we may raise an eyebrow,” she said. “But we don’t disenfranchise them from the paper.”
She said papers need to make sure they are applying the same standard to everyone who wants to announce a wedding: If they ask for legal proof of marriage from gay couples, they must ask that of all couples – a practice not in place at the Herald-Republic.
McBride recalled the decision a few years ago by the Spokesman Review in Spokane, where she worked at the time, to separate same-sex unions from other wedding announcements. “The editors decided (same-sex union announcements) would not be treated equally, they would put them under a different heading and they would not get a photo.”
McBride said she argued about the historical significance of what the paper was doing: “There was a time when other people also could not get access to those very pages: people of color and in interracial marriages. Given that, we should err on the side of equality.”
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