A front-page photograph in the Denver Post of House Speaker Mark Ferrandino kissing his partner has painted a thousand words all right, delivered via phone calls, e-mails, letters and tweets.
A sample:
Robert, from Bennet: What gives the Denver Post the right not only to print the pornographic picture on the front page of the paper, and then send it to my HOME AND MY FAMILY? … If I get one more piece of filth like that sent to me by the Denver Post, I will personally come down to the Post and in no uncertain term see to it that it stops.
@cenlaw: I’m saving today’s @denverpost bc of the incredible front page photo. #coleg
Anonymous caller: “OK, but they might be gay but goddammit, don’t stick it my face.”
Even Ferrandino admits to being a little squeamish about the shot. “My first reaction when I saw it was ‘Oh, no,’” the Denver Democrat said.
Ferrandino said he knew that the picture would generate the reaction it has and he wanted the focus to be on the passage of the civil unions on Tuesday, not on his goodbye peck to partner Greg Wertsch afterward. But Ferrandino admitted he has been the face of the civil unions bill, particularly when it died last year after one of the wildest nights in recent legislative history.
“I talk about Greg a lot but I’m very private when it comes to affection, and to see it on the front page was hard,” he said.
The picture, by Denver Post photographer Craig F. Walker, generated so much response Linda Shapley, director of newsrooms operations, wrote a blog about the decision to run it.