WTF WaPo?

Last month, the Washington Post published a big floofy profile of anti-choice terrorist Randall Terry. Today, Shaker Siobhan sent me the link to this big floofy profile of anti-marriage equality bigot Brian Brown. The headline is "Opposing Gay Unions With Sanity & a Smile," and the piece gushes about how very reasonable and likable and even-tempered he is, even as it describes his crusade to deny equal rights to a sizable portion of the American citizenry.

And then there are the exhortations that progressives must take Brown seriously, that he's got the people to make sure that marriage equality is not merely a matter of time. It reeks, as did the Terry piece, of a newsmaker's desire to fan the flames of a Great Social Battle of Our Time, because, gee, we're just not ready for progressives to actually win yet. This stuff is just too much fun!

Meanwhile, there are passages like this (emphases mine):

In short: The institution of marriage has always been between a man and a woman. Yes, there have been homosexual relationships. But no society that he knows of, in the history of the world, has ever condoned same-sex marriage. "Do they always agree on the number of partners? Do they always agree on the form of monogamy? No," Brown says, but they've all agreed on the gender issue. It's what's best for families, he says. It's the union that can biologically produce children, he says. It's all about the way things have always been done. He chose his new church, St. Catherine of Siena, because it still offers a Latin Mass. Other noted conservatives have been parishioners there; Antonin Scalia has worshiped at St. Catherine's.

"I think it's irrational that up until 10 years ago, all of these societies agreed with my position" on same-sex marriage, he says, and now suddenly that position is bigotry. "The opposition is trying to marginalize and suppress us," he says. "Usually, that happens with positions that are actually minorities. But we're the majority."

Does he ever think that what he sees as an abrupt historical shift is, perhaps, progress?

The author (or editor) subtly hints that Brown could be wrong—and, let's make no mistake here, he is. His version of history is demonstrable, manifest bullshit. Yet the WaPo seems content to merely hint at that reality instead of providing the evidence, those little things called facts in which I keep hearing the mainstream media is so interested.

I guess they don't want to offend Mr. Brown by pointing out he's, at best, an ignorant fraud, and, at worst, a despicable liar with a cavernous void of conscience.

But they don't seem to have any compunction about offending queers and their allies by running an absurdly imbalanced profile rife with its subject's uncontested mendacity, a piece that functionally serves to suggest that hatred isn't really hatred as long as it's delivered with a smile.

Contact the Washington Post's ombudsman