ABSTRACT
During the twentieth century, the American news media's coverage of gay men and lesbians was overwhelmingly negative. Journalism's penchant for making disparaging comments about gay people remained intact through the final decade of the century. The online magazine Salon ran a profile of a lesbian couple who'd been monogamous for fifty-one years-"Fidelity Was Their Path" read one subhead. Barney Frank informally polled his colleagues and learned that the legislation had a good chance of passing if it covered gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals but that it would fail if it also covered transgender workers. Most notably, sex acts between two men or two women had been legalized, lesbian and gay soldiers were serving openly, and the nation's highest court had ruled that two women or two men who had the right to marry in their home states are entitled to federal benefits.
