FIC Blog

The Sunday Courant ran a front page above-the-fold article on a UConn poll it sponsored which claims the state is evenly split on same-sex “marriage”:

Brian Brown, the executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, dismissed the poll results, saying the questions were skewed to draw a favorable response. Brown and other opponents of gay marriage want the issue to be put directly to the state’s voters in the form of a referendum.

“Every state that’s been able to vote directly on this has been with us,” Brown said. Gay marriage isn’t a civil rights issue, he said. “This isn’t about rights and benefits. It’s about redefining marriage.”

The supposedly moderate Genghis Conn reacts to what he calls Brian’s “all-too-predictable response”: 

I’m not sure where Brian is getting that from. Where, exactly, are the questions posted? I don’t even see them in the paper this morning. How can he tell that they are skewed if he hasn’t seen them?

Perhaps poor Genghis was so flustered with excitement over the headline that he couldn’t be bothered to turn to page A8, where 3 of the 4 questions appear. The Courant also provided us further information during the interview.

Genghis, a liberal of the “nobody here but us moderates” school, continues:

Regardless, it’s a favorite tactic of this particular group to cry “bias” whenever it suits them, and especially whenever the news doesn’t go their way, so any claim of bias from them is not particularly credible.

Our credibility is being questioned by a man whose blog has–twice now–put on its front page the outrageous falsehood that “the Catholic Church pulled out of the previously agreed compromise [on Plan B].” There was no “previously agreed” compromise for the Chuch to “pull out of.” Had such a falsehood run in the Courant, the paper would have eventually printed a correction.

Speaking of media bias, I’ve explained our concerns in some detail before. Perhaps the Left is having trouble digesting the nuances of that post–it does require some thinking and it may be too much trouble for them to go beyond their usual petty insults.

Still, at the risk of further confusing them, let’s consider the subject at hand. The Courant article itself is unfailingly fair to the pro-family side. But who decided the Courant would pay for a poll on same-sex “marriage” and no other issue? Who decided on the wording of the poll questions? Who decided to time it for when it could most aid pro same-sex “marriage” activists at the legislature? Who decided to run it front page above-the-fold in the Sunday edition? Editorial decisions that give the paper’s news sections the appearance of advocacy on behalf of the socially liberal positions taken by the Courant’s editorial board are what give rise to questions about the paper’s objectivity.

Again, the article itself is fair and balanced. But the poll question on whether marriage is civil or religious comes right out of our opponents’ playbook. Not until the push for same-sex “marriage” did it occur to anyone to bifurcate the “civil” and “religious” aspects in public discussions of marriage. The “rights” question, too, sets up a false dichotomy. Only proponents of same-sex “marriage” view it as a rights issue. The rest of us could happily answer “yes” to whether homosexuals should have the same rights as others without it meaning what same-sex “marriage” activists may think that answer means.

And why no Sunday front page above-the-fold poll on parental notification timed, say, just prior to that hearing? Or one on partial birth abortion just prior to the state House of Representatives’ vote eight years ago?

Same-sex “marriage” is number 489 on the House Calendar. Watch your in box for more information on what you can do to defeat it–if it comes up for a vote–and, if necessary, to encourage Gov. Rell to keep her promise to veto the bill.