I had the pleasure of joining Allison Seymour on Fox5 News again this morning to discuss the controversy around Newsweek’s  “The First Gay President” cover. I also had the pleasure of joining Sharon Lettman-Hicks of the Natl. Black Justice Coalition, who brought great insight and an important perspective on perception and how Black America is represented in the media.

One question that Allison asked toward the end of the interview was if I thought Newsweek was cognizant of race and its implications in developing the cover — my response was that I was certain that they were, and if we’d had more time would have mentioned that they were likely taking extra care not to make the same mistake that Time did with the darkened O.J. Simpson cover that sparked outrage. It appears that they may have taken the opposite approach and lightened Obama’s image to mitigate that risk and keep the response focused on gay marriage, which if the case, brings its own set of issues.

I agree with Sharon’s assessment that this cover will ultimately benefit same-sex marriage and equal rights, by keeping it front-and-center and continuing the conversation.