ABC News provided a dramatic example of the media's willingness to whitewash anti-gay bigotry. A November 28 “original report” on the ABC News website titled "Evangelicals to Bush: Payback Time" -- based on a segment that aired on the November 23 edition of ABC's World News Tonight -- asserted that Gary Cass, executive director of the Center for Reclaiming America, a grassroots Christian political organization affiliated with Coral Ridge Ministries, “wants a U.S. Supreme Court that will outlaw abortion and gay marriage.” As apparent support for its assertion, ABC News offered a quote from Cass that reveals his real agenda, which is in fact far broader than ABC News's characterization: “Do you want to take your children to a National League baseball game for instance and have homosexuals showing affection to one another? I don't want my kids to see that.” This quote also aired during the World News Tonight broadcast.

From the November 28 article on the ABC News website:

“Values” voters delivered for the president, and the president must now deliver for them -- especially in the courts, said Gary Cass, head of a grassroots political organization affiliated with Coral Ridge, called the Center for Reclaiming America.

“It's about the next 40 years and how the courts are going to affect the world in which my children and grandchildren are going to be raised in,” he said.

Cass wants a U.S. Supreme Court that will outlaw abortion and gay marriage. “Do you want to take your children to a National League baseball game for instance and have homosexuals showing affection to one another? I don't want my kids to see that,” he said.

What does a ban on gay marriage have to do with gays and lesbians “showing affection” at a ball game? Nothing. But you wouldn't know that from ABC News, which would have its audience believe that all Cass and his fellow conservatives want is to prevent gays and lesbians from getting married. Cass himself reveals that he wants much more.

Coral Ridge Ministries is the radio and television outreach of D. James Kennedy, senior minister of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The ministry's Coral Ridge Hour is syndicated via TV and radio to 400 stations, four cable networks, and the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service; it is the third most widely syndicated weekly Christian television program.