Comment: Biased BBC skews the debate on LGBT issues

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http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/03/27/comment-biased-bbc-skews-the-debate-on-lgbt-issues/

The BBC’s reporting on marriage equality proposals is more proof the corporation does not take LGBT issues seriously. Stupid questions, a megaphone to fanatics, fawning deference to faith and giving no time to the voices from our communities: it’s time BBC stopped treating its LGBT licence payers with contempt.

The debate over same-sex civil marriage has put LGBT rights in the spotlight as never before. But are gay people getting a fair hearing, especially on the BBC? The very standards for measuring the Corporation’s supposed impartiality are explained in a ten-minute video presented by Evan Davies on its School of Journalism website. Impartiality, after all, still requires judgments to be made on how to report the story, which facts to report, and whose opinions to include.

Arguably the BBC breaks its own standards because of the inflated level of attention it pays to religious opinion in general. It must be noted that organised opposition to marriage equality and LGBT rights is almost entirely religiously motivated. The media, especially the BBC, has given us saturation coverage of clerical positions on gay marriage since the Coalition for Marriage launched their campaign. But why should religious opinion should be treated as significant in the first place? Less than ten per cent of the population attend church every week (and that figure is declining) and the reactionary bishops who use their authority to campaign against gay marriage are themselves out of step with their own congregations. For the majority of people who do not care for religion, the issue of whether gay people should get married or not is nowhere on the radar.

The decision to treat the debate on marriage equality as a religious affair at all takes a leap of imagination. The proposals apply solely to civil marriage and have no consequences for the arrangements, doctrine or liturgy of any church. Neither does marriage depend on religious belief. Marriage existed long before Abrahamic religion, and today, only 30 per cent of UK marriages are conducted as religious ceremonies anyway.