twenty-something

While there hasn't been a whirlwind of coverage on Vermont's planned same-sex marriage bill that I mentioned yesterday, there is some, and most of it (from my Googling, anyway) appears to be local.

A quick round-up finds articles at Burlington Free Press.com, The Barre Montpelier Times Argus, Boston.com (The Boston Globe), and 365gay.com.

Don't bother clicking through any of those links, though. Each article is exactly the same (yay AP!). And each article includes that horrible and defeating first paragraph:

A Burlington lawmaker has drafted a bill to expand marriage to same-sex couples and plans to introduce it Thursday, although neither he nor advocates believe it will be debated or adopted this year.

As I understand it, it's unlikely for any bill to be "debated or adopted" in its first year, so unlikely that it's pretty much assumed for any new bill. The mention of this "fact" in the first paragraph of each article, in my opinion, is pretty biased and smacks of homophobia. But, hey, maybe I'm just biased myself. I obviously have an agenda for civil rights for me and mine -- but that's OK, because I'm not a journalist like Ross Sneyd of the Associated Press.

Also? I found no mention of the story on some Vermont "news media" sites, such as "The Champlain Channel" (our NBC affiliate, WPTZ) -- which features a top story headline of "Neighbors Irate Over B&B 'Swingers' Parties" yet no mention of this bill -- or, more disappointingly, my hometown's Rutland Herald -- which won a Pulitzer in 2001 because of its editorials on gay marriage/civil unions. I guess everybody in our little state is so focused on that Cashman controversy to pay much attention.

I'm certainly a long way from my old political and activist days, and I'm not very savvy when it comes to journalism, particularly online stuff, these days -- I haven't had a class on journalistic ethics since '99 -- so I'm sure someone will weigh in to correct me if any of this is wrong.

But I am entitled to my non-journalistic, pro-gay opinion, and it is simple:

that paragraph=biased
same-sex marriage=good
this bill=a big deal