Anti-Gay Activists Attack Shepard Smith For Being “Pro-Gay Marriage”
May 10, 2012 12:33 pm ET by Carlos Maza
In the wake of President Obama’s decision to announce his support for marriage equality, anti-gay activists have begun criticizing a surprising target: Fox News.
A number of anti-gay leaders criticized Fox’s Shepard Smith for his statement that Obama was “now in the 21st century” on same-sex marriage. Peter LaBarbera, head of the anti-gay hate group Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, scolded Smith for “dissing Fox’s brand”:
Bryan Fischer, spokesman for the American Family Association, agreed, adding:
Perhaps the most scathing criticism of Fox so far has come from Maggie Gallagher, co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). In a May 10 National Review Online column titled “Fox News: Pro-Gay Marriage?" she wrote:
Fox News stopped covering marriage victories years ago. I personally noticed it during the November 2009 elections when CNN and MSNBC gave plenty of airtime to the Maine referendum where voters successfully repealed gay marriage — but on Fox? Nothing. Did not exist.
(No, I don’t know why Fox News is so reluctant to provide fair and balanced coverage of a major development on marriage, unless it’s on the pro–gay-marriage side.)
But yesterday, Fox’s big news host Shepard Smith made it clear he’s pro–gay marriage, actually endorsing President Obama’s gay-marriage flip while reporting on it.
[...]
Roger Ailes famously said that with Fox News he had discovered an underserved market niche — half the American people. Or 61 percent of North Carolinians apparently.
To some extent, Gallagher has a point. Over the past several months, Fox has downplayed or entirely ignored significant advancements for LGBT equality, especially when it comes to marriage equality. As far as Fox’s anti-gay “brand” is concerned, though, these activists probably don’t have a lot to worry about.
Previously:
Fox News Underreports Advancements For LGBT Equality
