Coverage boosts state's liberal image
If the state's deadlocked constitutional convention accomplished nothing else this week, it may have cemented the idea of Massachusetts as a liberal, out-of-the-mainstream place in the minds of readers and viewers across the country.
A lead story in The Idaho Statesman reported that the impetus behind a decisive vote by that state's House of Representatives to ban gay marriage was to "save Idaho from the fate of Massachusetts and bolster the traditional family."
Interviewed about same-sex marriage on ABC's "Nightline," Boston College professor Alan Wolfe declared that "Republicans must be salivating about the opportunity this gives them to portray the Democratic nominee, who is likely to be from this state, as out of touch with mainstream American values."
Syndicated conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage says his listeners are "at a point of revolt" over efforts to legalize gay marriage. "They don't understand how a representative body can cater to such a small amount of people," he said in an interview.
This week, Boston became the prime battleground of the culture wars, as local, national, and international journalists descended on the city to watch legislators wrestle with the explosive question of what kind of recognition and rights to bestow upon same-sex couples. "I can't think of anything [at the State House] that has equaled this kind of worldwide media attention," said Ann Dufresne, communications director for Senate President Robert E. Travaglini, who handed out about 250 press credentials to reporters.
The debate generated headlines everywhere, from The Columbus [Ohio] Dispatch to Bulgarian television. The dominant story line portrayed a liberal state engaged in a social experiment that will be fodder for the presidential campaign and potentially damaging to the prospects of its native son, Senator John F. Kerry.
"This is clearly the area, the battleground where this is going to be fought out," said "Nightline" executive producer Leroy Sievers. "Both parties are salivating over the way this can be used."
On his MSNBC television show, "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, known for cutting to the political core of any issue, asked, "Will gay marriage make or break the Kerry campaign?"
Tobe Berkovitz, associate dean of the College of Communications at Boston University, said that widespread coverage of the marriage debate has reinforced the national perception of Massachusetts as "planet Pluto of left-wing whackiness, [a] mecca of sorts of out-of-step social values."
On Wednesday and Thursday, as the debate raged at the State House, the three major network newscasts devoted 15 minutes to covering the gay-marriage issue. One NBC report, which surveyed how other states were addressing the matter, interviewed a Michigan lawmaker who said he wanted to avoid repeating the Massachusetts experience. "I do not want a liberal activist judge in the state of Michigan overturning Michigan law based upon some novel finding in our Michigan Constitution," he declared.
Some of the coverage of the subject took on a food-fight mentality. On CBS, "The Early Show" featured a debate of sorts between the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Cheryl Jacques, a former Massachusetts state senator who is now president of the Human Rights Campaign. While Jacques talked about inheritance laws and Social Security survivor benefits, Falwell raised the specter of legally sanctioned incest and bestiality if same-sex marriage were approved.
According to Talkers magazine publisher Michael Harrison, the subject was the second hottest topic on the conservative-dominated talk radio airwaves this week, just behind the continued bloodshed in Iraq. And that news is not good for the Commonwealth. The main theme of the talk radio discussion, Harrison said, can be summed up as, "Massachusetts, the state that gave us that whacky John Kerry."
It was hard to find coverage of same-sex marriage that did not discuss the political implications for the state's junior senator, who has emerged as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
On Newsweek's website, contributor Eleanor Clift wrote that "with Massachusetts Senator John Kerry seemingly poised to become the Democratic nominee, the [Supreme Judicial Court] ruling is a gift for the White House." A story in the current issue of the magazine concluded that gleeful White House allies see the court's ruling as the political equivalent of "a Massachusetts miracle." And in a column headlined "John Kerry is now in the cross hairs," Tallahassee Democrat Bill Cotterell cited gay marriage as a wedge issue when he warned that "in six to eight months, it might be hard to remember that `Massachusetts liberal' is really two words."
Steve Capus, executive producer of NBC's "Nightly News," called the same-sex marriage debate "an issue of our times, and I think the country is fascinated to watch." A number of other states are also grappling with the subject, he added, but "it's probably no accident that Massachusetts is the first state to deal with this."
