Why is Fox News Writing About a Pro-Gay Story They “Almost” Ran?

I love Fox News. In a world with so many uncertainties, it’s nice to have someone you can count on…for party-line conservatism. Know thy enemy, the saying goes.

So it’s always a little annoying when the opposite happens. Take a story posted to Fox News online by independent correspondent Dominic Di-Natale: “The gay soldiers that wanted to be on Fox.”

According to Di-Natale, gay soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who were willing to talk about their experiences and opposition to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell had approached him about a story. Di-Natale apparently had some good stuff, including a semi-secret website the soldiers went to for “encounters” and to socialize.  

What’s more, Di-Natale had proof out soldiers would not necessarily threaten unit cohesion:

“What a story, what a scoop. Here was in-theatre evidence that disproved in numerous examples the argument that openly serving homosexuals were a threat to unit cohesion in a combat environment. While I was under no illusion that there would be companies and commands where it would be a fractious problem and that egos on both sides of the fence could clash within units, it clearly wasn’t the case in every example,” he writes.

Di-Natale says he  could've done the story: his Fox News editor was okay with it. But the timing was bad, and he feared repercussions for the soldiers who spoke out.

So the story never aired, until now, basically, with this online post.

Is Fox News changing its tune on gays? Do they sense the tide has shifted and little is to be gained from lining up with the Jim Dobsons and William Donohues of the world?

Maybe. Certainly the network been less than gay-friendly in the past. Just last month Fox News allegedly rejected an ad supporting a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” SNL has even made fun of them, with a skit in which Greta Van Susteren asked: “Should homosexuals be allowed to prance around our military like it's Cirque Du Soleil?"

And there’s always its online coverage, which on any given day can feature a pretty sensational and biased report or headline on any number of topics. (While writing this article, I saw a picture of Dracula with the headline: “They’ll Stop at Nothing: Dems Vote to Regulate the Net.” Subtle).

On-air we’ve had Tucker Carlson calling efforts to teach student GLBT history “propaganda” and “blackmail,” along with stories highlighting opposition from top military officials. Stories on other topics have seen correspondents making light of gender reassignment surgery and gay identity in general. It’s all over YouTube.

So is there reason to believe Fox's coverage might change? Who knows? The truth is, Fox has always been far more anti-government (see: the healthcare debate) than they’ve been anti-gay. Memos have been leaked showing direct orders from the top ordering reporters to skew coverage.

But there’s a consensus building among moderate Republicans, like the ones living in New York at Fox News HQ, that their opposition to gay issues will soon be in the past. People like Steve Schmidt and P.J. O’Rourke have claimed that gays getting married, buying cars and homes, having children will eventually bring them into the family-values set. The party should welcome them, they say, though perhaps not like Ann Coulter at Homocon (“As soon as they find the gay gene, you know who's getting aborted.”)

That might explain the sudden appearance of Di-Natale’s essay. Now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been repealed and the military leadership is basically behind it, perhaps Fox News would rather viewers and readers forget their past opposition and instead think about the pro-gay story they almost ran.

It would hardly be the first time a group or a person has tried to rewrite history (see Haley Barbour trying to rewrite Mississippi’s history of segregation) so they don’t look as bad. But pretending something didn’t happen doesn’t make it so, and no one gets credit for almost having done the right thing.