News Release: Chicago Media Should Not Be Marching in ‘Gay Pride’ Parade: IFI
6/23/2005 7:16:00 AM
By Illinois Family Institute
News Release
For Immediate Release, June 23, 2005
Contact IFI: 630-790-8370
GLEN ELLYN, Ill.--Illinois Family Institute Executive Director Peter LaBarbera said today that the expected participation of Chicago media organizations in the city's "gay pride" parade Sunday "mocks the ideal of media objectivity and fairness."
LaBarbera urged the media not to repeat last year's spectacle in which several major Chicago media corporations, including CBS 2, ABC 7, NBC, WGN, and Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ), fielded floats in the city's annual "pride" parade.
"By siding so openly with one side of a very controversial issue, the media risk further alienating that silent majority of Illinois citizens who are tired of press bias and who do not believe that aberrant sexual and gender lifestyles are something to be proud of," he said.
"Are the Chicago media so jaded that they cannot even see the pitfalls of participating in a parade that mocks traditional religion and celebrates behaviors regarded as wrong or sinful by millions of city inhabitants?" he asked.
The erotically-charged Chicago "gay pride" parade celebrates homosexuality, transsexuality and even sadomasochism, through annual participants like the Chicago Hellfire Club.
LaBarbera said media involvement in the parade amounts to a "de facto endorsement of homosexuality. It shows that they have given up on neutrality."
Homosexuality, "gay marriage," and pro-homosexual programs in schools remain deeply divisive issues that deserve impartial, balanced coverage, he said.
"This is not like participating in the St. Patrick's Day Parade, which everyone supports. By marching with the go-go boy dancers, transvestites and liberal special-interest organizations like Equality Illinois and PFLAG, the media are showing their true colors--and they match the rainbow flag of pro-'gay' activists," LaBarbera said.
He called on Chicago media leaders to return to a high standard of professionalism that eschews advocacy or partisanship of any kind.
Illinois Family Institute is a non-profit group affiliated with Focus on the Family, Alliance Defense Fund and Family Research Council that defends marriage, the natural family and the sanctity of life in Illinois.
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