Have you noticed the trend toward diminishment or magnification by means of redefinition?  It's really gotten weird.  The lamestream media, for example - good little Leftists that they are - very consistently employs the term "undocumented worker" when what they're really talking about are illegal aliens.  That's just silly.  It's like referring to drug dealers as "unauthorized distributors of pharmacological products".  Using the term, however, has the effect of diminishing the problem of illegal aliens by making it appear as though they're doing nothing illegal - they're merely "undocumented".

Alternatively, when talking about another item high on the Leftist agenda, they use other terms to magnify the "problem":  those who disagree with their position on same-sex marriage are labeled as bigots.  Such "marriages" are unilaterally referred to as a civil "right" - although of course no such "right" is conferred by either federal or state constitution.  Nonetheless, failure to embrace the proposal results in cries of "discrimination".  This term is employed in order to magnify the issue, and to somehow place same-sex marriage on an equal footing with racism.

In point of fact, there is nothing inherently wrong with discrimination, and discrimination is not the same as racism - although in the minds of many Americans, the two terms have come to be equated.  This is why the term, "discrimination", pushes hot-buttons and is therefore used as a magnification tool by the lamestream media and other Leftists.  However, each and every one of us faces discrimination of one sort or another, and generally, we don't find it entirely odious.  Insurance companies that issue binders for autos routinely discriminate by gender and age, because young male drivers collectively tend to rack up more wrecks than do females of the same age.  Baseball pitchers are young guys.  You don't see old guys, nor women, on the mound in a MLB contest, and that's clearly discriminatory.   Yet you accept that, because after all, you want your team to win.

How interesting, then that when the lamestream media promotes opposition to same-sex "marriage" as discrimination, you intuitively place that at the same level as you place racism.

It happens because, although you can see discrimination in action every day, it is somehow different when the media uses the word in a "report".

Media consciously selects words that are designed to diminish or to magnify your perception of any given issue as a "problem".  You're being manipulated not by reality, but by linguistics.