According to a recent state-wide poll, 65% of Tennesseans support the Republican proposal to insert a ban on gay marriage into the U.S. constitution. Thirty-two percent disagree and 3% aren't sure.
No surprise there. Tennessee has long been a nation-wide leader in the education deficit.
And then there is our media. Last year, Nashville's daily, the Tennessean broke with tradition and ran a feature story about a member of the LGBT community. A gay Vanderbilt student was running for homecoming queen. Granted, it wasn't a story about everyday members of the LGBT community who work in, and contribute to, the larger community in a myriad of ways, but it was something.
The paper more than made up for this timid step into the 21st century by running a page-length apology (sorry, can't find the link). The page-length apology assured the paper's readers that just because the paper ran a story about a gay person, didn't mean the Tennessean was advocating or supporting "the gay lifestyle."
If the Gannet paper didn't have access to the language of the Right, it would be forced to resort to pictures.
The feature story was buried in the Living Section. The page-length apology was smack in the middle of the political section.
This is Nashville's "liberal" daily paper. Rest assured, liberals and progressives in this state view the Tennessean with the same level of skepticism and hilarity that others reserve for the Washington Times and Fox News.
Nashville's PRIDE Festival is next weekend (June 4); there are PRIDE related events scheduled for the entire week. The tradition at the Tennessean is to cover the one event with one short and dull news story buried in the local section. But watch for a front-page spread of the Southern Baptist Convention, with additional daily coverage for the full length of the convention, later this month.
There were more than 10,000 people at last year's PRIDE Festival.
But back to the poll. Among Tennessee Republicans, 81% support a gay marriage ban in the U.S. Constitution. Among Democrats, 53% do not.
Yet more evidence that the roughly 97% of all Democratic lawmakers in this state - who are anti-gay marriage - do about as good a job representing their constituents as the Tennessean does covering the diversity of viewpoints in this city, county, state, nation and world.
