Tim Graham

Testing Media Research Center Spokesman's Advice to Pastors on how to discuss Gay Rights

Media Research Center’s Tim Graham talked to Janet Mefferd yesterday where he claimed that opponents of same-sex marriage can’t get on TV, a point which he then undercut when he admitted that anti-gay activists like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Harry Jackson actually made the rounds on TV to respond to President Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality. Graham called Obama’s announcement a “tragic,” “dark” and “depressing moment” for America, and declared that he “would like to see what would happen” if pastors like Jackson could speak about same-sex marriage during interviews just as “he does at his church”:

Graham: I think for a lot of people Obama saying, ‘I think this should be the way it is in America,’ was really a tragic moment for the country, it was a very dark moment, a very depressing moment. Those people, like me, who have that opinion, try getting on television!

Mefferd: That’s what I was going to ask you, as you were surveying the landscape of the media over the weekend and since the President made this stand on his new evolution, which was really an old evolution that he brought out again, did you see many conservatives or many people who were in favor only of traditional marriage getting a say so on TV?

Graham: A little bit, I mean the most prominent one of course has been Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and he has made the rounds a bit, I think some of the best things he said is again, in a political context they’re not really having a moral discussion, the media wants to discuss this in political terms. I think the hard thing for people to do, I saw Bishop Harry Jackson on News Hour on PBS, he doesn’t really do in the studio what he does at his church. He doesn’t reach for the Bible, he doesn’t make a testimony, I think people get intimidated saying ‘I’m here in this secular place and I’m going to say secular things.’ I just wonder, I would like to see what would happen, if you try to engage these people, because you have to explain this is where the opposition comes, it’s from a religious, traditional point of view.

Graham may be on to something, as TV interviews might be much more candid and exhilarating if Harry Jackson told the hosts at PBS or MSNBC that demonic forces, specifically the Queen of Heaven, are responsible for gay rights, just as he preaches in church:

Or if Perkins went on CNN or Fox News and said gays are “held captive by The Enemy”:

Brian Tashman's blog

Media Research Center Demands Media Promote Belief that 'Someone Can Choose Their Sexuality'

Tim Graham, the Media Research Center’s Director of Media Analysis, appeared on Truth in Action Ministries’ flagship radio program Truth that Transforms today, where along with host Carmen Pate, he railed against the media for not giving more attention to “ex-gay” activists or promoting the “idea that someone can change, that someone can choose their sexuality.” Later in the interview, he twisted the recent statements of actress Cynthia Nixon, who said that while the way she identifies herself is a choice her sexual orientation is bisexual. Graham also criticized Glee and The Voice for “promoting the gay lifestyle” and accused the media of trying to “constantly exclude the conservative view on marriage,” which is par for the course for the MRC, which has a long record of attacking “gay propaganda” on shows like Glee and defending “reparative” therapy.

Pate: I think about the debate on marriage when you see the major news media talk about the issue they only present one side, they very seldom if ever talk to former homosexuals, people who left the lifestyle who are now enjoying heterosexual marriage. You don’t hear that side of it, you only hear one side, so that leaves the audience thinking there is no other side and that does change opinions over a time period when the truth is silenced.

Graham: I think the narrative they’ve tried to establish, and one of the reasons why they constantly exclude the conservative view on marriage, is that they want to present this as all historically inevitable, basically it’s already happened, let’s move on, why are we even discussing this anymore, it’s all done, there’s no need for debate, it’s over. What’s really intriguing, as long as we’re talking about the broadcast networks, is most of the news media coverage of this issue now will say, of course this is going to happen because you can see it on Glee, you can see it last night on The Voice, you can see it on all these television programs that are promoting the gay lifestyle. They’re using Hollywood and New York promoting these things as a reason for why this is going to happen and there’s no reason, just surrender, there is no way this is going to lose. It’s not just bias, it really becomes intimidation, you better come around to this point of view. And you’re absolutely right, one of the things that is so wildly controversial that you can’t even discuss it on television is the idea that someone can change, that someone can choose their sexuality.
Brian Tashman's blog
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