Friday, February 27, 2004
Newspapers figuring out how to handle gay wedding announcements
AP Here:
This thing is going so mainstream, so fast.....
Newspapers in [San Francisco] and beyond are grappling with how to deal with announcements from some of the more than 3,300 same-sex weddings that have been held in the past two weeks.
In the past few years, an increasing number of newspapers around the country have been running announcements of gay commitment ceremonies and civil unions. But the San Francisco weddings led some newspapers to rethink things.
At the Santa Cruz Sentinel, which has been publishing same-sex unions for about 15 years, the burst of weddings in San Francisco prompted a change: "Now these go under 'weddings' instead of 'celebrations,'" said editor Tom Honig.
Gay marriages - including Rolon and Rogers' - made up half of all the marriage announcements in Sunday's paper, Honig said. ....
The San Francisco Chronicle traditionally runs announcements for all couples, gay or straight, for $200 to $300. To date, no gay couples married in the city since Feb. 12 have opted to buy one of the announcements.
But the Chronicle is preparing to remedy that by promoting a new, $150 announcement-and-photo package.
This thing is going so mainstream, so fast.....