The Cream City Foundation wants you to know that gay families are no different from heterosexual families. Moreover, they are probably living next door.
Thus, Lisa Kaiser reports in the Wednesday, August 13, issue of Shepherd Express, “Same-sex couples are registered in 98 of 100 southeastern Wisconsin Zip codes” Her source is Denise Cawley, a media consultant for the Cream City Foundation.
According to Susan Bence, reporter for WUWM, Ms. Cawley “helped the advocacy group come up with its billboard campaign.” On Thursday, August 14, Ms. Bence on NPR Morning Edition reported, “Cawley says in the last census gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender families registered in every Zip code across the nation.”
Also on Thursday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a laudatory article by Georgia Pabst about the Cream City Foundation campaign to battle “stereotypes.” Ms. Pabst did not include any “Zip code” statistics.
The Zip code statistic broadcast by WUWM is significantly different from the one published in Shepherd Express. Ms. Bence reported that there are LGBT “families” “in every Zip code across the nation.” Ms. Kaiser reports only on same-sex couples – thereby relieving us of trying to figure out what a “bisexual family” is – and finds them “in 98 of 100 southeastern Wisconsin Zip codes.” Neither Ms. Bence nor Ms. Kaiser explains with whom these “families” are “registered” or why. Ms. Bence makes a passing reference to “the last census.”
In email correspondence both Ms. Bence and Ms. Kaiser confirmed that their source was media consultant Denise Cawley. Subsequently, Ms. Cawley owned up to only the 98 of 100 statement. The basis is not the 2000 U.S. Census, as implied by WUWM’s Susan Bence, but that census interpreted by UCLA’s Williams Institute. The Williams Institute is also a gay advocacy organization.
Both Zip code statistics are false and appear to be the invention of Ms. Cawley and the Cream City Foundation.
Neither the U. S. Census nor the Williams Institute reports their findings by Zip code.
The reason Zip codes are not used in demographic reports is most likely that the United States Postal Service does not assign Zip codes by geographical area. Zip codes are assigned to facilitate mail volume.
For example, the city of Milwaukee alone has 43 Zip codes. Ten of these are “unique.” Unique Zip codes are given to corporations and other entities that receive a high volume of mail. There are no families of any kind receiving mail at these Zip codes.
The only way one can have 98 of 100 Zip codes in southeastern Wisconsin with gay families is to cherry-pick the 100. Such cherry-picking, however, would invalidate the gay neighbor claim of the Cream City Foundation.
What has been done here is not mere advocacy, but propaganda. False information, disguised as quantifiably verifiable fact, is being used to argue that same-sex families are the same as heterosexual families.
It may seem a small matter. However, if the Cream City Foundation is false in this small matter, how can they be trusted concerning the larger question?
WUWM, Shepherd Express, and even the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel are all complicit in promoting Cream City’s propaganda. True, MJS did not report the Zip code statistic, but neither did it expose the falsehood of what is obviously part of Cream City’s press release. All three “news” organizations merely passed on what was fed to them – without the least concern for veracity.
In 2006, a clear majority of Wisconsin voters passed a constitutional amendment supporting marriage as the union between a man and a woman. At the time, the proponents of gay marriage denounced the vote as bigoted and based on ignorance. The Cream City Foundation has launched a campaign to combat this “ignorance” with falsehood. And they have willing confederates in a significant portion of the Milwaukee media.
5 comments:
Even if the statistics weren't skewed, so what? Let's run the math another way.
If it is true that most marriages are a failure because one or the other spouse is an adulterer, then it is a safe bet that one or more of my neighbors is a cheater. But we've gotten used to living with "your cheatin' heart," so it doesn't matter how many are living in which zip codes any more. In fact, according to some sources, such activity shows maturity. So I suppose the new social maturity is tolerance of homosexual and gay marriages?
(Give me a moment while I shudder.)
I can recall a time when the Army sent home a wife from Germany because she was cheating around. She was deemed an unfit military wife. My son informs me that soldiers in Iraq use MySpace to cheat on their spouses. Relationships are formed, and meetings are arranged for during leave from Iraq or return from there. Marriages are broken from that. Happens in the civilian world, too. I wonder what the zip code demographics for that would be?
I'm not saying that it's fine and dandy to allow homosexual and gay marriages. What I am saying is that we've "healed the wound so lightly" (Jer 8:11) that now the greater sins are no longer an offense to us. Where children would scarce speak with insolence to an adult, now they insist it is their God-given right to be treated as an adult as soon as they can speak.
The film "Swing Vote" has much to say to us in this regard.
Well, I'm not from Wisconsin. I'm from Virginia where my fellow citizens passed a constitutional amendment (actually, it was a desecration of Thomas Jefferson's beautifully written VA Declaration of Rights) that made my 25 year marriage "unconstitutional". I worked for many months to stop that amendment and worked with people from all over the State of Virginia. I can say with a high level of certainty that there are non-traditional families in every single county in Virginia.
What is a non-traditional family? It is a family where one or both members is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual of Transgender (LGBT); and either:
1. The perceived gender of the two heads of household is the same
or
2. The perceived gender of the two heads of household is "traditional" but the biological sex of one or both members does not conform to the perceived gender (see case of
Thomas Beatie.)
You ask how bisexual persons can be members of non-traditional families. Seriously, you don't know? If I bisexual person marries a spouse of the same perceived gender, that person is a member of a non-traditional family. Marriage is a covenant commitment to share the your life (all of it) with your soul mate, for life. In marriage, two become "one flesh" or one family.
I get the feeling that people see the word bisexual and all they think about is sex. No wonder marriage is "under fire". If marriage is reduced to mere sex (or sex + babies) and there is no true heartfelt covenant, it's most likely an adulterous marriage (per Jesus' definition in Matthew).
Jonanthan, You need to work on your writting. Simple and direct is best.
I think you are saying you had a same-sex marriage, recognized by the state of Virginia, until a constitutional ammendment was passed which invalidated it. If that is what you are saying I find it incredible. I doubt that Virginia recognized such marriages before the ammendment past.
If you are attempting to define marriage according to Holy Scripture, it is insufficient to say, "Marriage is a covenant commitment to share the your life (all of it) with your soul mate, for life."
Biblically, marriage is always the union of a man and a woman. Male and female are "made one flesh."
The Bible is explicit in condemning homosexual practice. What that means for Christians requires another essay, but there is no disputing that the Scriptures are clear on this subject.
What I was inferring about bisexuals is that one cannot be a practicing bisexual and be in a faithfully monogamus marriage. Hence this cannot be a family like hetersexual families.
Again, if I have misunderstood your post I am sorry. However your convoluted, adjective-burden, sentence are somewhat to blame.
It appears that you, like the Cream City Foundation, are straining to defend the indefensable.
Michael James Hill,
Yes, my writing, re-writing and proofreading are lacking. Maybe I shouldn't have posted personal information. Regardless, the information I posted was factual. My marriage was not "unconstitutional" prior to the passage of VA Amendment 1.
You did miss the point of my comment. Think mathematically and conservatively. If 1% of the population is GLBT and the smallest VA county has a population of 10,000 people, there will be 100 GLBT people in that county. Odds are pretty high that at least two of them will be partnered. Since counties contain many more people than 10,000, the claim that *all* counties contain GLBT families is true.
You may be justified to criticize the zip code methodology, but not the conclusion that there are GLBT families everywhere. That's a fact and it's indisputable.
Your reference to a "practicing bisexual" is very funny. You may have lost your focus and forgotten what marriage is. Please re-read Matt 5:28
"But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart"
and Matt 15:11.
"Not what goes into the mouth defile a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man."
Jesus is very clear and unambiguous. What is "the practice" to which you infer? Is it the carnal "what goes into the mouth"? Or is it the spiritual "what comes out of the mouth"?
Jonathan, You are not well.
You were not married in Virginia before the constitutional amendment passed. You are not married now. Nothing has changed.
More importantly, you are not married in the eyes of God. If the USA passed a constitutional amendment recognizing so-called gay marriage, you still would not be married in the eyes of God.
You quote Scripture out of context and without regard to relevance. God condemns both adultry and homosexual pactice and calls for repentance.
You should read those passages of Scripture that speak directly to the subject. You might begin with Romans 1:26,27. Scripture does not contradict itself. So there is nothing in Scripture which nullifies this passage.
I do not know that 1% of the population is LGBT evenly distributed throughout the country,as you assume. Nor do I care. If 1% of the population were thieves that would not make theft acceptable.
We are off topic. The point of the post is the the CCF made false claims to make their case. That is because their major premise, that homosexual coupling is essentially the same as marriage between a man and a woman, is wrong.
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