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Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney being sworn into office.

His partner of 22 years Randy Florke holds the Bible and they are joined by their three children.

(This is not the photo posted with the original story - see below)

U.S. Congressman Marries Same-Sex Partner

Ashley Killough
June 22, 20014


Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney tied the knot with his longtime partner, designer Randy Florke, Saturday night in New York.

"Even after 22 years together, we're overwhelmed by how blessed we feel to celebrate this special day with our friends and family,” the couple said in a statement.

With their marriage, Maloney, 47, becomes the second member of Congress to legally wed his same-sex partner while in office. Former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, became the first to do so in 2012.

Maloney, a Democrat who served as a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and now represents the lower Hudson Valley region in New York, is the first openly gay congressman from the Empire State. Florke, 51, is a real estate and design executive in New York City for The Rural Connection, Inc., the company he founded in 1996.

The couple were married at the Church of St. Mary-in-the-Highlands in Cold Spring, where they live with their children Reinel, 24, Daley, 13, and Essie, 11.

“With our three kids by our side, this couldn't have been a more perfect day. Thank you to all our friends near and far for their love and support as we continue to fight to ensure all families can experience the joys of a lifetime commitment,” they said.

Maloney isn’t the only current member of Congress in a same-sex marriage. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, married his husband in Canada in 2006 and was elected to Congress in 2012.

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In what I view as a subtle bit of veiled homophobia, CNN ran the photo below with this story on their website.  Wouldn't you agree that this is perhaps the worst photo of a happy couple that you've ever seen a major news outlet post to it's website (even Kim K. and Kanye's was better).  And while it might be easily enough explained away as just a bad day on the part of the photo editor, I have to believe this was an intentional act.  

Are we to believe that CNN does not have access to the web and all the much better photos of the couple that they could have used (I found plenty to choose from) and/or don't they have Photoshop (or even MS Office Picture Manager)?  

And if you doubt my spin on this subtle messaging by CNN, let me ask you when is the last time you saw a black white photo in a news story?  Is this 1954?  I smell a homophobe somewhere near CNN's Atlanta headquarters.

The horrible photo CNN ran with this story

"Fear Eats the Soul"