So you need a little graphics for your page. You are the Washington Times and the columnist is anti-gay activist Robert Knight of the Concerned Women for America’s Culture and Family Institute. So of course you used a graphic that includes the words “gay,” “buggery,” “unnatural,” “sodomy,” and so on. Don’t believe it? As Good as You points out, “[i]magine the commentary was about Blacks. Or immigrants of any nationality. Or Jews, Christians, or Muslims.”
I’ve discussed the Washington Times before and it’s rather anachronistic approach to dealing with gay issues. The financially strapped newspaper is believed to have fewer than 50,000 daily readers, but is still a favorite of social conservatives and the D.C. conservative power elite. But the paper considers itself a mainstream newspaper and is given that kind of treatment by others.
But you have to wonder the deicisionmaking that went into this graphic. Whose idea was it? Why did they think it was a good idea? Even on an editorial, does the graphic make any sense? It would be one thing to do an editorial cartoon that is provocative, but a simple, toss-away graphic? Can you imagine the outrage if a similar kind of graphic was used to describe social conservatives?