If the National Republican Party had embraced the Ku Klux Klan or the American Nazi Party, would mainstream media pick up the story ? Probably.
The American Family Association, sponsor of the Republican National Committee's upcoming Israel trip (organized and led by pastor David Lane), is no less extreme and has been venting its virulently hateful anti-LGBT, nativist, religious supremacist, and arguably racist rhetoric across America's airwaves for years. Hate speech from the AFA's nationally syndicated radio show targets a wide range of minorities: LGBT citizens, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Native-Americans, Muslim-Americans, Muslims (generally), Mormons, Jews, and more.
And this is not a new issue: Time magazine broke the news of the RNC Israel trip (and, more to the point, who was sponsoring it) over six weeks ago, on December 8, 2014. So mainstream media has had ample advance notice.
But so far the main American non-LGBT media venue covering the scandal [see 1, 2] has been MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show.
"They were making an overt argument that Mitt Romney should not be elected to public office in this country specifically because of his religion... the Republican Party is now explicitly embracing these guys. Not just people who are related to people who are related to these guys. I mean, the 'I won't vote for Mitt Romney because of his religion' guy [pastor David Lane] is the same guy, the exact person who is taking Reince Priebus and the Republican Party leadership on this trip [to Israel] the day after tomorrow." - MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, January 29, 2015, characterizing statements from Bryan Fischer, David Lane, and the American Family Association, made during the 2012 presidential election, concerning the candidacy of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
The "serious" heavyweights - the
New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, not to mention broadcast media (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and so on) - have thus far opted to not cover the story, which has also been covered by two major Israeli media outlets (by
Haaretz and the
Times of Israel), by several American Jewish outlets including the
Daily Jewish Forward, and
extensively in LGBT media.
read the rest of this story here, at Twocare.org