Fox News devoted sixty seconds to
recent gay marriage victories and ignored one completely.
In less than two weeks, lawmakers in
Rhode Island, Delaware and Minnesota approved bills legalizing such
unions. In Rhode Island and Delaware, the bills were signed into law
on the same day they emerged from the legislature. Supporters in
Minnesota waited a day before Governor
Mark Dayton put pen to paper.
Passage in all three states was
dramatic. Delaware
Senator Karen Peterson came out gay in the course of debating the
bill. In a first for the nation, the
entire Republican caucus of the Rhode Island Senate endorsed marriage
equality. And the bill easily passed the Minnesota House with 4
Republican votes in tow two years after the chamber approved sending
to voters a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a
heterosexual union, marking a dramatic reversal of fortune. Voters
rejected the amendment.
Fox News ignored passage in Delaware,
and devoted only 16 seconds to Rhode Island and 44 seconds to
Minnesota, according to statistics compiled by Equality
Matters.
CNN devoted a total of 4 minutes to the
stories, while MSNBC pitched in 49 minutes. The May 12 edition of
MSNBC's Up with Steve Kornacki devoted more than 20 minutes to
passage of marriage equality in Minnesota.
(Related: Fox
News' Todd Starnes on Jason Collins: NBA is turning into Glee.)