Clay Robison’s Sunday op-ed is some pretty asinine journalism, even considering the source (who’s an expert):
STATE Rep. Warren Chisum apparently was surprised when the Ku Klux Klan announced plans to hold a pre-election rally in Austin in support of his constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage.
He shouldn’t have been, because flies are attracted to garbage wherever they may find it.
Chisum, a Republican from Pampa, isn’t a cowardly cross-burner who takes delight in bashing African-Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities. But his sponsorship of Proposition 2 on the Nov. 8 statewide ballot offers the KKK another opportunity to do what it does best — promote prejudice and hatred, albeit of a different brand than produced the racial lynchings of not so many years ago.
I am not equating the debate over whether homosexual couples should be allowed to marry to the long, often bloody civil rights struggle of blacks and Hispanics in America.
But….
I omitted the rest of the sentence that begins “But” because it contradicts the bolded paragraph. Robison is indeed doing exactly what he says he’s not doing. Perhaps his frothing produced a shock from his keyboard, thereby causing his confusion.
There are reasonable arguments for and against Proposition 2. And then there is Robison’s column, which really isn’t the sort of thing one expects to find in a quality newspaper.
Jeff Cohen and the rest of the Chronicle‘s executive editorial leadership, of course, expect readers to believe that Robison can crank out work like this on Sundays, but serve as a completely objective bureau chief six days per week. That’s laughable.
