Media Pet Peeve

This story arrived last week. It seems innocuous enough...

Even as states and jurisdictions made gay and lesbian marriages legal, "The Newlywed Game" has played it straight — until now.

The long-running game show, now on the GSN cable network, said Wednesday it will feature its first gay couple this season on a celebrity edition. George Takei, who played Mr. Sulu on "Star Trek," will appear with his partner, Brad Altman.

Anyone aware that "The Newlywed Game" was even on the air somewhere, raise your hand...anyone?...no one? I thought so. The story goes on with the usual stuff -- comments from Takei, a GSN executive, current host Carnie Wilson (again, who knew?), some notes about the show's history, some hatemongering from a right-wing nut...wait, WHAT?

Dan Gainor, a vice president at the conservative Culture and Media Institute, said the move was a publicity stunt for a show most Americans didn't realize was still on the air. Despite Wilson's views, Gainor said he believed it was a political statement for the California-based show and network, coming in a state where voters banned same-sex nuptials months after Takei and Altman married.

"They're trying to use TV and the movies to set the gay agenda and make it mainstream," Gainor said.

And there we have it. There's no reason for the media to get a comment from these right-wing conservative creeps any time a story that remotely touches on a gay issue is mentioned. This isn't a story about a vote in Congress or an election. It's about a stupid TV show with an undoubtedly tiny audience.

Nearly every TV show in history has pushed and pushed a straight agenda, and no one finds the need to get a comment from gay activists for reports about those shows. No one wanted to know why Ricky Ricardo didn't have a gay brother, or whether Jed Clampett had any lesbian kinfolk back home.

This is simply more proof that the "liberal media" doesn't really exist. When push comes to shove, the mainstream media is much more conservative than anything else. We've seen it over and over. The "journalism" at the beginning of the Iraq War is just one example. This explains why the "birthers" and the "tea baggers" and the "creationists" and the other mental defectives get so much publicity. They're given respect and attention that they just don't deserve.