Cheers to both the Providence Journal and Fall River Herald News editorial boards, both of whom reaffirmed their support for marriage equality in Rhode Island and called for swift passage of this long-overdue equal rights legislation before it becomes part of the political horse-trading on Smith Hill in the springtime.
This is an important point. Soon enough Rhode Island will learn whether Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed’s opposition to same sex marriage runs stronger than her desire for continued political power. I don’t imagine it does. Not when you factor in that she alone will bear the biggest political crosses, if you will, if Rhode Island rejects marriage equality.
While she is certainly seeking something in return for her support – it could be something giant like control of the powerful Joint Committee on Legislative Services or something smaller like support for binding arbitration – she also risks going down in the books as the Rhode Island’s 21st century version of George Wallace, the Alabama governor, known as “the most influential loser” who fought against civil rights in the early 60′s. Such a legacy would certainly affect her ability to become a judge in the future.
Openly? gay
There’s another point about these two editorials that’s worth noting – this one a difference in them.
The ProJo refers to House Speaker Gordon Fox as being “openly gay” while the Herald News more simply points out that Fox is gay. I think it’s prejudicial to refer to someone as being “openly” gay. There’s a great Wikipedia page on this for those who want to explore this more. For our purposes, I’ll keep it local:
Gordon Fox is no more (or less) openly gay than Ed Achorn is openly heterosexual. They are both – to my limited knowledge – in loving, long-time, committed relationships with two primary differences: one is gender and the other involves equal protection under the law.
When the media refers to gay people as being “openly” gay it implies there is still some cause to be closed about such sexual identity. There isn’t. Not here in mainstream Rhode Island there isn’t.
There are surely some hate groups, churches and other such outliers who still think it’s noteworthy that someone doesn’t hide their affection for people of the same gender. But by and large this ceased being a big deal to most people a long time ago.
We’re just waiting for the law to catch up with rest of society…
I see your point but, as a former newspaper reporter, I’ve had a different take on the term “openly gay.” To me it’s an acknowledgement that there are many not-so-openly gay people in every aspect of life – and this person being interviewed is not the only one.
If you really want to argue for full equality, you would have to either stop referring to anyone’s sexual orientation in these stories or start pointing out that all the other people interviewed in the story are heterosexual. This happens all the time – in stories about racism, they only refer to the color of the people of color, etc. Ultimately, it’s about changing a majority view that whatever the majority is – white, Christian, heterosexual, etc. – is the norm and everything else is an offshoot which must be pointed out.
This is way more complex than changing the term used in the newspaper but I’d like to think the reporter is actually trying to be somewhat inclusive by using that term. Naive, maybe, but what the heck – I’m in a good mood – we passed marriage equality in the House!
Generally, I agree with you about the use of “openly,” but with an exception: I’ve actually used “openly gay” in some of our press releases about this issue. We say that Speaker Fox is the first openly gay person to hold the top leadership position in either chamber in Rhode Island. We don’t really know that no one else in one of those positions over the course of history was gay. Actually, just based on the percentage of the population that is gay, I’d bet you some were. We just know that no one else spoke publicly about it. So for the sake of accuracy and honesty, openly gay makes sense in that case.