A recent Associated Press story stoked anti-gay stereotypes and made light of
a gay father's serious circumstances, said Chalee Snorton, southeastern regional
media manager for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
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CHRISTOPHER SEELY
Friday, January 23, 2004
A GAY MAN in Tennessee, ordered by a judge there not to discuss his “gay
lifestyle” with his son, was also the subject of news stories that are
now coming under criticism for conjuring up negative gay stereotypes.
The Jan. 8 story from the Associated Press also appeared in two of the state’s
leading newspapers, the Tennessean in Nashville and the Commercial Appeal in
Memphis.
The article began: “A gay father can’t flaunt a homosexual lifestyle
when his son is around, a state appeals court has ruled.”
Officials with AP have since apologized for the dispatch, which used language
like “flaunt” and “lifestyle” considered pejorative
to gays without citing it to the court’s ruling.
“We regret the error,” said Jack Stokes, an AP spokesperson.
Editors at the Tennessean and Commercial Appeal did not respond to interview
requests by press time.
The AP stylebook states that writers and editors should steer clear of references
to gay, homosexual or alternative “lifestyle,” Stokes said.
“We violated the Associated Press style guidelines in repeatedly referring
to ‘homosexual lifestyle’and ‘gay lifestyle,’” he
said.
The wording of the opening sentence riled officials with the Gay & Lesbian
Alliance Against Defamation, which launched an Internet campaign targeted at
the story’s author, Matt Gouras, to show that the lead was inappropriate,
according to Chalee Snorton, southeastern regional media manager for GLAAD.
Gouras, who works for AP, could not be reached by press time.
BESIDES RUNNING COUNTER TO AP style, the article’s lead also sensationalizes
a gay man’s court-ordered closet, lessening the severity of his situation,
Snorton said.
“GLAAD was concerned by the usage of the terminology particularly because
of the content of the story,” Snorton said.
“The term ‘homosexual lifestyle’ is too vague an expression to describe
our lives as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people and only serves
to conjure up negative stereotypes about our community.”
The word “flaunt” projects images of gay men being “oversexualized” and “deviant,” Snorton
said.
“There is a difference between reporting accurately to describe LGBT
people in a fair and accurate way versus using terminology like ‘flaunting
a homosexual lifestyle,’ which is inflammatory,” Snorton said.
The gay father, Joe Hogue, was barred from “taking the child around
or otherwise exposing the child to his gay lover(s) and/or his gay lifestyle,” a
divorce court judge ordered in 2002.
But Hogue broke that restraining order later that year, telling his son that “when
someone is gay, they are born like that,” prompting a Williamson County,
Tenn., judge to throw Hogue into jail for two days, after Hogue’s ex-wife
complained to the court.
Hogue appealed the ruling to the state court of appeals, where a judge threw
out the jail sentence, but took no issue with the lower court removing the
child from the father’s “gay lifestyle.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution defended its decision to publish a letter
to the editor Jan. 13 that called an unspecified member of a lesbian couple “granny-aged” in
discussing a complaint filed with Atlanta’s Human Relations Commission.
On Jan. 12, the commission ruled unanimously that the Druid Hills Golf Club
discriminated against two gay members, Lee Kyser and Randy New, by not granting
their domestic partners the same privileges offered to other members’ spouses.
Coverage of the case prompted debate on the paper’s editorial pages.
A letter writer opposing the ruling referred to Kyser’s children being
raised “by two lesbians, at least one of whom is ‘granny’-aged.”
Though the letter writer resorted to name-calling, it did not advocate violence
and therefore “didn’t cross a line,” according to Cynthia
Tucker, the AJC editorial page editor, who has written in support of gay issues
in the past.
“If this is to be a forum for the community, it needs to represent the
entire community, including people who are mean and vicious,” Tucker
said.
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