Brian Williams clarifies his "marriage under attack" statement...

After watching Brian Williams on "Saturday Night Live" last weekend (they re-ran the episode already!) I was delighted with his sense of humor and timing. I'd seen it on Leno and other shows but never in skit form. So when I read yesterday that he had led into a story about The Queen saying that marriage is "under attack" I thought he must be joking!

He works for NBC News, not FOX News! It was not unreasonable to speculate exactly what the heck he meant by this since right-wingers use the same phrase to complain that we gay people - who simply want the same rights as every other American - are trying to destroy the institution of marriage by wanting to marry people of the same sex.

But Brian Williams wrote in his blog today that he didn't mean anything like that at all:

"I was the recipient today of several emails from well-intentioned people, telling me I was being attacked in parts of the blogosphere for something I wrote and said on the air in last night's broadcast. It was a closing piece about Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip celebrating their 60th anniversary. I noted this accomplishment, especially in this era when, as I put it, marriage seems "under attack" as an institution. My meaning? Our national divorce rate, which is currently somewhere between 40 and 50 percent. Others took it upon themselves to decide that I was somehow attacking gay marriage. The simple fact is that nothing could have been further from my mind, as many others easily understood. In fact, one comment shared with me today came from a respected member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, who said, "It seemed to me he was talking about the sky-high heterosexual divorce rates. Marriage IS under attack -- by straight people. It had nothing to do with the gay marriage movement."