Brian Williams Loves Me, Tho

This little flap arose today. Brian Williams, the NBC anchor, finished last night's newscast with a piece on Queen Elizabeth II's 60th wedding anniversary by saying something like, "In an era when marriage is under attack...". You can see a shaky YouTube version here.

Some gay bloggers and fellow members of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association pointed to it as a reference to the same-sex marriage movement. It's not that farfetched because "under attack" is a phrase used routinely by anti-gay activists.

But in this context, it seemed to me like something else. So I wrote on the NLGJA list-serv: "It seemed to me he was talking about the sky-high heterosexual divorce rates. Marriage IS under attack -- by straight people. This was a story about a surprisingly durable straight relationship. It had nothing to do with the gay marriage movement."

And Brian Williams responded tonight on his blog. And he quoted... ummm... me!