Did Fox News Use a Photo of a Gay Couple in a Story About Traditional Marriage?

Did Fox News accidentally use the photo of a lesbian couple to illustrate a story about traditional marriage?

It’s true.

A February 5, 2013 article by Suzanne Venker entitled, To be happy, we must admit women and men aren’t ‘equal’  discussed the evolution of traditional gender roles.

There were originally three video clips associated with the article:

• Should we admit women and men aren’t ‘equal’?
• Inside look at the ‘war on men’
• A war on men?

The video entitled “Should we admit women and men aren’t ‘equal’?” was the default video and included a large thumbnail featuring a couple kissing atop the Empire State Building. It was soon pointed out that this was not a man and a woman, but in fact a lesbian couple.

The image was originally posted in a Huffington Post article on February 14, 2012 entitled, “Valentines Day Around The World: Quirky, Bouncy And Hairy.” One of the photos included was that of Lela McArthur and Stephanie Figarelle of Anchorage, Alaska, who were the first same-sex couple to be marred at the Empire State Building.

Feminist author Jessica Valenti of The Nation pounced on the error and posted the following on Tumblr:

Shhhh…no one tell Fox News that the “wedding kiss” picture they’re using to accompany a piece about traditional gender roles is actually of a same sex couple. (MADE MY DAY)

The screen shot below was found on the Wayback Machine, and shows the article as originally published – with all three videos associated with it. The video featuring the lesbian kiss was soon disassociated from this article.

The video in question still exists, however it has a new thumbnail, and is no longer associated with the Suzanne Venker article. We found it via a search of the Fox website:

Bottom Line

It does appear that someone at FoxNews used a photo of a lesbian couple as a video thumbnail in a piece about traditional gender roles. When this was discovered, the thumbnail was changed, and the video’s association with the article was removed.

Sources

• Valentines Day Around The World: Quirky, Bouncy And Hairy (Huffington Post: February 14, 2012)
• To be happy, we must admit women and men aren’t ‘equal’ (Suzanne Venker: FoxNews. February 5, 2013)
• Jessica Valenti (Tumblr)