Legal marriage required for newspaper announcement

California residents, Tyler Barrick and Spencer Jones were married in San Francisco last summer, but that’s not good enough for The Spectrum, a Gannett Co. newspaper in southern Utah, where the couple’s family members live.  After their wedding announcement was accepted–without a photo, out of concern that it would upset readers–the newspaper changed its mind.  The AP published an e-mail exchange between publisher Donnie Welch and Jones:

“After all, our marriage is just as real and legal and entitled to celebration as any of the others that are announced each week in the pages of The Spectrum,” Jones wrote in an e-mail to Welch.

“This simply is not true,” Welch replied in an Aug. 10 e-mail, a copy of which the couple provided to The Associated Press. “While that may be the case in some states it is not the case in the state of Utah. As our policy is to run marriage announcements recognized by Utah law, I have made the decision not to run the announcement.

GLAAD also chimed in on the AP article.  (Neither Welch nor Gannett responded to the reporter’s request for comment.)  The advocacy organization compiles a yearly list of newspapers that do allow same-sex wedding or union announcements, which included The Spectrum in 2008.  Robinson said:

“At the end of the day, this is not about their editorial pages or the opinions of their columnists… This is about the celebration pages reflecting the community, and a community is going to have people from many very different walks of life. We are diminished if our stories are put aside.”

GLAAD promises to contact Spectrum advertisers to let them know about the change in policy.  And The Salt Lake Tribune, owned by MediaNews Group, Inc., printed their announcement.

Defaming Howard K. Stern

Is calling someone “gay” defamation? Not according to a big legal victory–but some confusing journalism–involving author Rita Cosby and Anna Nicole Smith’s former business and romantic partner Howard K. Stern. A federal judge in New York ruled that Cosby’s assertion that Stern was gay was not “defamation per se,” but that the underlying allegations involving sex and a sex tape could be the basis of a defamation claim.

Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled a “veritable sea change in attitudes about homosexuality” and a “‘current of contemporary public opinion’ does not support the notion that New Yorkers view gays and lesbians as shameful or odious.” Chin’s decision conflicts with other ruilngs in New York on the question, which raises the possibility the larger legal issue could find its way to New York’s highest court.

In the ruling, the court cited an amicus curiae–friend of the court–brief filed by Lambda Legal supporting the position that calling someone gay is not “publicly shameful and odious.”

The reporting on the story has been confusing, at best.  Reuters started the confusion by stating:

A companion of late Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith can sue an author for defamation but not over gay sex claims because homosexuality is no longer viewed as contemptible, a U.S. judge said on Wednesday.

The ruling actually says just the opposite. The gay sex claims can be the basis of a defamation claim in terms of having a defamatory intent. In other words, saying someone was in a sex tape with a man can be viewed as defamatory depending on the intent and the truth. That’s an  issue the judge sent to a jury. The story is correct in saying “homosexuality is no longer viewed as contemptible” and therefore the mere assertion someone is gay can’t be the basis of a claim, without something more.

Unfortunately, the Advocate appears to have used the Reuters story as its main source and repeats the confusion.

The confusion–and to be fair, it is a legal nuance that’s hard to explain–is handled better at Towleroad where Andy has focused on the “being called gay” part of the claim.  The New York Daily News doesn’t bother with the gay defamation angle, focusing only on the sex tape. The Associated Press apparently took the same approach, skipping over the big legal news.