GLAAD Wants CNN to Stay Away From “Anti-Gay Industry”

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is urging its supporters to sign an online petition to CNN to keep away from what it refers to as the “anti gay industry”.

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GLAAD is accusing the network which they said has long been one of the most respected journalistic organizations on many issues of having a blind spot on issues that affect the LGBT community. While citing a December 21 John King USA segment with Peter Sprigg of the conservative pro-life Family Research Council as an example GLAAD claims that CNN has often used members of the anti-gay industry when seeking to provide a balanced viewpoint on gay issues. GLAAD also says CNN only books these people because the are anti-gay. The segment that offended GLAAD and pushed them to action featured Alex Nicholson an openly gay former Army intelligence officer and Sprigg who is a senior fellow at the aforementioned Family Research Council to discuss “Don’t Ask, Don’Tell”. From GLAAD’s perspective Nicholson was a trues expert having served in the military while calling Sprigg’s work some of the most hurtful, dangerous and false notions about the LGBT community and felt that pairing the two together for the segment gave them equal weighting on the issue which should never have been the case. GLAAD wants CNN to stop what it calls exposing its viewers to dangerous anti-gay rhetoric and quit inviting members of anti-gay groups on its programs. CNN responded to the attack by saying that it “appreciates GLAAD’s concern for objective and fair reporting,” and that it would “continue to strive for the best bookings of experts who have opinions that reflect different points of view across the country.” But GLAAD wasn’t just attacking CNN and trying to get the network to be more gay friendly but it was also attacking free speech and the right of any guest to express their opinion even if GLAAD thought it was harmful or hurtful. The real agenda here isn’t one of fairness or balance as they claim but of preventing those with dissenting views on the gay lifestyle and agenda from having a voice. They want a pro-gay bias only on CNN. But what GLAAD is really afraid of is that people like Sprigg will actually convince viewers that the gay viewpoint isn’t necessarily the only one that should be considered in policy making among other things. Based on the response to date though CNN has nothing to worry about as the petition has gathered all of 4,293 signatures in nearly three weeks and should be considered an outright failure.