Just the Facts

“Just reporting the facts makes it easier don’t you think?” that was a question put to me lately by a news reporter friend of mine. Just reporting the facts on a hot button issues is far harder than one would think but he makes it look too easy. A news reporter that actually just reports the facts is hard to come by in this state and we should value them for the insight they give us by reporting the facts on both sides of issues. Unbiased news reporting is the foundation of a free society.


Here are my views on a hot button issue but be forewarned that I am a columnist and not a news reporter so I am expected by my readers to express an opinion on current issues.


Last evening I attended a meeting put on by someone who is openly lesbian and she was very angry because the partnership bill had been effectively tabled by a local state senator who condemned it to a republican controlled finance committee rather than see it passed into law.


This state senator violated the voters trust by not supporting the Democratic Party’s platform when it came to this issue but as of late he has engaged in attacking another party member as well and one has to wonder what his reasoning is behind these behaviors.


The leader of the group turned her anger toward me at the end of the meeting because my church does not support partnerships or marriage for lesbians/gays. I told her that I personally support partnership for lesbians and gays because I see it as a social issue of fairness and human rights to their community but that I cannot support marriage because I know that there are extreme individuals in her community that would try to force priest into marrying them. When their tacit fails as it must they will then sue the church for large sums of money. Their desire in the end is not to be married in the eyes of the law with all the rights that it entails but to force the church to accept their life style.


Fairness toward society’s individuals when it comes to basic human rights is something every society should work toward and America is not without its flaws in this area. America was built on the idea of fairness and tolerances toward all individuals so we should respect each other’s views and work toward living together in peace without hate and anger toward each other because of our different views on issues. The first step toward understand is to listening to each other without anger or name calling.


So in answering my friend’s question yes reporting just the facts on some issues would appear to be a lot easier but columnists must often step into the area of opinion to get people to listen to each other and to express their own point of view on those issues; nevertheless, I do want to point out that there is nothing more valuable to a free society then a unbiased news reporting system. We all need trusted sources where we can get hard facts from both sides of an issue.