Keepers of the flame

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Nov 28, 2003

The Media Research Center's Brent Bozell has some mordant commentary on journalists' waving their pom-poms while pretending to report on the gay marriage decision:

Predictably, our national media greeted the news with their usual hosannas for the homosexual revolution. Newspapers everywhere featured the gay plaintiffs in Massachusetts in embraces of celebration. The political battle was between "gay activists" (no ideology there?) and "conservatives." Unlike partial-birth abortion stories, no one feels the compulsion to add quote marks, or "so-called," or "what proponents call," as the liberal linguists twist the dictionary definition of marriage.

At Newsweek, they used a less-than-neutral quote for their headline: "My Mommies Can Marry." Wire services popped their corks with the usual words, a "historic," and yes, "landmark" decision. This is now so common in judicial circles that stricter constructionists now call it "landmarkism" -- the spectacle of judges stretching constitutions into Silly Putty in a bid to be hailed as the next Historic Liberator.