DPF has this nice story of how some evil Christians tried to deceive Joe public.
The couple on the right are South Florida trade-show executive Vanessa Alenier and her partner, Melanie Leon. They just won custody and the right to adopt a one year old girl who was born to a relative who was unable to provide good care.
So this was keeping the child in the extended family. But the decision got attacked by certain religious groups, including the Florida Family Policy Council.
But the Orlando Sentinel revealed, the photo distributed with their media release condemning the court’s decision used the photo on the left. The actual lesbian couple looked far too nice and wholesome, so they found the most scary lesbian couple photo they could and used that instead.
The link is a opinion column – and it shows. It name calls (“finger-waggers”, “These extremists”) and tries to drive a wedge between ordinary Christians and those who lead campaigns against the gay agenda on their behalf :
Not the majority of mainstream Christians, mind you. Not those who are focused on caring for their own families and practicing their own faith — those who may even question homosexuality — but those who are obsessed with homosexuality.
Someone in comments linked to the Strengthening Florida’s Families blog which explains the situation.
Last week the Florida Family Policy Council’s weekly E-Newsletter contained a story about yet a third South Florida activist judge who illegally approved a homosexual adoption in direct defiance of Florida’s law which prohibits the arrangements. The photo in the news piece we ran (red and blue shirts on left) was obtained from an online article about a different South Florida Judge who approved a different improper homosexual adoption.
And it was illegal – even the opinion column admits that. So this is about law as much as anything.
Orlando Sentinel “Taking Names” Columnist, Scott Maxwell, on an apparent slow news day, managed to devote an entire column just to criticizing and judging our motives as an organization for the use of the mistaken photo before getting the facts. Maxwell did ask FFPC President John Stemberger if he had a justification for use of the wrong photo in an e-mail and Stemberger sent back the following e-mail response:
“Scott, a day after the e-newsletter was sent out it was brought to my attention by one of my own staff members that this was not a picture of the actual couple in question in the Herald story but was a photo which was associated with an earlier story on a different gay adoption story. See (warning some graphic content on this site) http://bossip.com/58859/the-gays-win-a-round/ I would be happy to issue a correction and an apology if you or someone else felt it was warranted. I have received no complaints on this till now. If you are going to do a piece defending the position that Florida’s law on homosexual adoption needs to be changed that is fine but do not focus on the straw man of our admittedly boneheaded mistake. Let me know if you would like to see an apology and or a correction issued. John Stemberger”
“Boneheaded mistake” – they’re not exactly defending it, are they? They even offered to make a correction as soon as the mistake had been pointed out.
Unfortunately, because Maxwell gave no deadline, the publishing of the column and Stemberger’s explanation missed each other by only several hours. Maxwell’s column which was published on Wednesday February 3, 2010 was his usual name calling hit piece accusing the FFPC of “dirty tactics”, “deception”, “intolerance” and “fear mongering” for not using the actual photo of the lesbians involved in the story (see photo with gray shirts). Maxwell also never really addressed the merits of the debate or why he thinks homosexual adoptions are a good idea and are just as good as adoptions by both a father and a mother. (see previous BLOG post from last year below for detailed discussion on this debate)
After receiving Stemberger’s explanation and correction, Maxwell himself never apologized for his irresponsible and judgmental rant against the FFPC but did blog on Stemberger’s correction (see http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_local_namesblog/2010/02/stemberger-wrong-pics-of-gay-couple-was-mistake.html) Unfortunately, he also never bothered to quote at all from the explanation given and again tried to put the FFPC in a bad light even after knowing the facts of both of our mistakes.
FFPC President John Stemberger has issued the following statement of apology:“I would like to offer my sincerest apologies to Melanie Leon and Vanessa Alenier for the mistaken photograph used in reference to the homosexual adoption story we published last week. The use of the photo was a clear mistake on our part and was not intended to demean either of you or other gay identified persons. Please accept our apology.”
So they’ve apologised for their mistake, but no one really seems to care about that, or that their basic point (that the judge was acting outside the law) is correct.
Funily enough, no one seems to care about the site they took the photo off either.
But, I guess all that doesn’t fit with the “Christians are eeeevvviillll!!!!” cry that greets any christian opposition to the liberal agenda. It’s much easier to demonise people when you omit to mention they simply made a mistake, then apologised for it.
Much easier.
Written by scrubone
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