The Washington Post has cranked out yet another anti-equality-bigot-embracing puff piece on yet another associate of The National Organization for Marriage. Regulars will recall Post writer Monica Hesse’s unquestioning embrace of NOM head honcho Brian Brown in late August. A week or so later, the Post’s Ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, issued, in response to public criticism, what amounted to a public apology for the flagrantly inept piece by the young Ms Hesse, who, it was revealed, is bisexual, disagrees with NOM’s Executive Director on marriage equality and intended the piece as irony.
That the Post decided to celebrate the anti-equality efforts of non-DC-resident Harry Jackson with barely a dissenting opinion is, to put it mildly, outrageous. At one point in the piece, DC Councilmember Phil Mendelson observes, “It’s an unfortunate reality that one can’t preach discrimination without inciting homophobia.” That, it would appear, is Harry Jackson’s raison d’être.
This is how Bishop Harry Jackson spent his summer vacation: He hustled back and forth across the District rallying his faithful flock who oppose gay marriage. He leaned into microphones over at the Board of Elections and Ethics, quoting biblical verse, decrying those who would trumpet marriage between man and man, woman and woman.
Post Staff Writer Wil Haygood scopes out Jackson’s recent defeat in the battle for marriage equality in DC:
But Tuesday afternoon, Jackson, 56, one of the more vociferous leaders in the anti-gay-marriage movement across the country, suffered yet another setback — this one perhaps lethal — when he received word that the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics had ruled against his “Marriage Initiative of 2009,” which would have recognized only marriage between a man and a woman. While gays cannot marry in the District, same-sex marriages legally performed in other states and countries are recognized.
The ruling means Jackson’s initiative will not be on the local ballot for 2010, his months-long objective.
“We always believed we’d have to take it to Superior Court,” Jackson says just minutes after receiving a hand-delivered copy of the ruling. “We believe the board has a wrong interpretation of the Human Rights Act.”
Board spokeswoman Alysoun McLaughlin says: “The board cannot accept an initiative that authorizes discrimination prohibited under the D.C. Human Rights Act.”
But even if Jackson’s options appear to be dwindling, he vows the battle will continue.
Of course, Jackson vowed to resolve the issue by getting himself an activist judge — funny how activist judges are a good thing when the judge agrees with the extreme right wing and they’re the Devil’s work when they don’t.
Jamison Foser, writing at Media Matters for America, in his aptly-titled piece, Why does the Washington Post keep running fluffy profiles of anti-gay activists?, notes:
For 2,200 words, Post writer Wil Haygood tells readers about Jackson’s faith, and about his childhood. Haygood tells us Jackson “found himself” in the Bible after his “Daddy died.” We learn that during his working-class childhood, his parents scraped together money for tuition for private-school, where Jackson was, as he puts it, “the black kid at Country Day who stayed in the houses of wealthy white people.” We learn that he got into Harvard Business school, and was “smitten” when he ran into a childhood acquaintance, who he later married.
Foser also points out that the Washington Post has allowed Haygood to taint Jackson’s critics as “dangerous, angry people.” From the Post:
His admirers have multiplied, and so have his critics. More than once, police have stopped by his Southeast Washington apartment to check on his safety.
[ ... ]
“I was in line someplace recently,” Jackson says, “and a woman who obviously opposes what I’m doing looked at me and said, ‘You better go back to Maryland.’”
His wife says: “We have been verbally abused by the best.”
Some of his appearances unleashed vitriol, even threats.
Why does the Washington Post deny Jackson’s critics — a group that includes many of his fellow clergy — the right to speak for themselves? Instead, the paper opted to provide a platform for the tarring and lynching of anyone who happens to oppose Jackson’s bigotry and his collusion with extremists like the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, among others.
Addressing several thousand conservative Pentecostals at Virginia Beach’s Rock Church, Harry Jackson stated his opposition to the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr Hate Crimes Prevention Act by bellowing, “God’s looking for a SWAT team … he’s looking for a team of Holy Ghost terrorists!” But, you won’t read that in the Post’s puff piece on Bigot Harry Jackson.
I wholeheartedly agree with one thing Jackson says in the article: “Being relevant means you have to speak to the problems of today.”
Harry Jackson’s thinly-cloaked homophobia and the Washington Post’s uncritical attention to those who would eliminate civil rights rather than enhance them are the problems of today. Please read the full text at The Washington Post and add your comments, send them an email or give them a phone call.
+++++++
Must reads on Harry Jackson:
- Pam Spaulding: Bishop Harry Jackson gets the glamour shot treatment by the WaPo
- Jamison Foser (Media Matters for America): Why does the Washington Post keep running fluffy profiles of anti-gay activists?
- Peter Montgomery (People for the American Way): Point Man for the Wedge Strategy: Harry Jackson is the face of the Religious Right’s outreach to African American Christians
- Right Wing Watch: Washington Post Publishes Puff Piece On Harry Jackson
- Metro Weekly: Bishop Harry Jackson: All of black DC is against gay marriage
- Brentin Mock (Southern Poverty Law Center): Intelligence Report: Bishop Harry Jackson
Click for Printable Version
