I’m not a big fan of the Washington Times as it is, but what really annoys me is that whenever the paper carries an article about gay marriage, it puts the word “marriage” in quotation marks, as it does here:

A month after the Supreme Court decision legalizing sodomy and Canada’s recognition of same-sex “marriage,” analysts say an almost casual acceptance of homosexuality pervades the media.

Okay — I might, might be inclined to agree with this policy, to a point. It acknowledges that gay marriage in the United States is currently just hypothetical. But the paper also uses quotation marks to refer to legal Canadian marriages. That’s just obnoxious. It’s implicitly saying, “Canada might have made gay marriage legal, but we still think it’s a ridiculous idea.”

Particularly galling and insulting is the paper’s reference to “the ‘marriage’ of Deb Price and Joyce Murdoch in Toronto last month.” (Price and Murdoch, incidentally, are the co-authors of the book that Ralph Nader sent me.)

Price and Murdoch don’t have a “marriage.” They have a marriage. They’re legally married. Just because the Washington Times doesn’t like it doesn’t make it any less legal. Nice try though.

What’s also annoying — no, just plain awkward — is the paper’s refusal to use the word “gay” unless it’s embedded in a quotation. I’m sorry — it may not be technically incorrect, but it’s really weird to refer to “Will & Grace” as NBC’s “homosexual-themed sitcom ‘Will & Grace.'”

They really need to lighten up at that paper.