The Battle Over Marriage: Gay Rights Activism Through the Media (20 page)

“God vs. gays.” Michael of the Human Rights Campaign referred to this as an unfair co-opting of religious values by a small group of individuals who claim a monopoly on morals. Marriage activists found themselves constantly struggling to shift the conversation to one in which religious values were a part of the gay voice, not set in opposition to it. They sought to create spaces in the media debate for supportive religious leaders to speak out in favor of same-sex marriage. As I discuss in chapter 5, this prevalent “God vs. gays”

framing in 2003–2004 set the tone for later coverage in 2008–2010, in part pressuring gay rights organizations to hire new faith-based staff positions and develop outreach efforts in religious communities.

This predominant framing by the media became especially problematic

when religious narratives conflated with racial representations, often featuring religious African American leaders in a debate against Caucasian

gay rights activists. Media personnel, accustomed to habit, constrained by deadlines, and limited to a “stock” bank of sources, often fell back on this common sourcing pattern. As one activist expressed it, in a reporter’s mind,

“If I want an opposition viewpoint, oh, right, let me get a black minister” who will “shout hellfire and brimstone.” For example, Arlene of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus told the story of when she was, in her view,

“set up” by a cable news show in the 1980s to debate an African American minister in front of a mostly black middle-class conservative audience. It hit her as she walked on stage that she was fighting a losing battle, a “black handsome minister against this white Jewish lesbian.”

The lack of black and religious spokespeople speaking on behalf of gay

rights, and often cast as opposed to gay rights, complicated gay organizations’

strategic attempts to frame gay marriage as a civil rights issue. As chapter 5

s

details, the “blacks vs. gays” frame became especially problematic in 2008

n

in the context of the election of Barack Obama and, at the same time, the l

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passing of Proposition 8 in California that banned gay marriages in the state.

As Arlene explained it, when “you’ve got a bunch of white gay people saying it’s a civil rights issue, it’s meaningless and resented by the black community for understandable reasons.”

One of the biggest challenges for gay marriage activists, then, became

to create a more diverse bank of sources for media outlets, in particular supportive religious and civil rights leaders, who would speak in favor of marriage equality. Cognizant of the visual impact of religious symbols in this debate, Arlene, who was responsible for lining up media spokespeople, went as far as coaching supportive religious leaders to “dress the part.” She insisted her religious spokespeople wear the visual adornments of the
kip-pah
(yarmulke) or the clerical collar. Frustrated by leaders who would make media appearances in casual dress, she would tell them, “‘Come on, guys, you just diminish your value to us if you’re not wearing—you’ve gotta wear that little clerical collar. That’s the big sign.’ In this debate, 20 years later, we needed as many collars coming out, saying the right thing, as that image buster: the revelatory notion that in fact religion did support us.”

Further, recognizing the limits of her status as a “white Jewish lesbian” in this debate, Arlene feared that her very presence in the media contributed to the stereotype that all gay activists—and, for that matter, all gay people—were white and privileged. She therefore took a step back as the primary media spokesperson for her organization in order to highlight the voice, perspective, and image of her co-chair, Gary, an African American male. “So whenever

the press would call, I’d say—if it was broadcast, if it was TV—‘Talk to Gary.’

And if it was print media, I’d still say, ‘Talk to Gary.’ But I’d say, ‘Gary, be sure to tell them you’re black.’ Otherwise, gay activist, everyone pictures white.”

So although gay and lesbian activists and couples were featured in prominent, mainstream news stories, their presence was mostly restricted to two-sided debates against conventional y “straight” voices and perspectives. Coverage of the marriage issue, in other words, was imbalanced, sustaining the long-standing pattern of inequality in the power, prestige, and prominence of the sources cited (Alwood, 1996; Bennet, 2000). Conservative activists, political and legal analysts, religious figures, legal sources, and even the president himself were al otted more time to speak in news reports than were gay and lesbian citizens.

As the previous chapter reported, of the couples who visual y appeared in television news stories, only 20 percent were given the opportunity to speak at al .

Coverage of the gay marriage issue continued the well-documented pattern of granting often-heterosexist opposing sources from legal, medical, religious, and political institutions the opportunity to “talk about gay people, rather than s

allowing them to speak for themselves” (Gross & Woods, 1999, p. 349). As nl

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chapter four

chapter 5 details, as the issue matured, the activist community continued to struggle over how best to represent pro-gay perspectives in mediated discourses and gain support from the “moveable middle.”

Framing the Story: Journalistic Frames

and Activist-Preferred Frames

From underreporting the numbers at gay rights marches and events (by

relying on “official” police estimates rather than those of organizers) to downplaying and trivializing the 1969 Stonewall riots credited with sparking the gay liberation movement, scholars have argued that the mainstream media

has participated in disparaging and marginalizing the efforts of gay activists (Alwood, 1996; Gross & Woods, 1999).

As a long line of mass communications scholarship has shown (see chapter 1), the ways in which news personnel frame issues, events, and communities shapes how news audiences come to interpret those issues and communities.

To make sense of extraordinary events, and to be able to do their jobs efficiently, journalists organize events around major societal themes, frames, or conflicts that offer “definitions of social reality” (Tuchman, 1976, p. 94). Frames operate as “organizing principles that are social y shared and persistent over time, that work symbolical y to meaningful y structure the social world” (Reese, 2001, p.

11). Mainstream news media become an important site of struggle over framing, as groups in power and those attempting to have a voice in the debate compete to have their perspectives and definitions dominate.

Gay rights activists interviewed for this study discussed the challenges they faced when attempting to frame issues in the press, often having to compete with oppositional frames like “God vs. gays” as well as standard journalistic frames like novelty and conflict. The increased press attention on gay and lesbian issues in the past decade meant that leaders of the gay rights movement had to be concerned with framing the message. My analysis here

is thus driven by concerns on the part of both activists and scholars over the dominant framing of gay activism and gay issues, which has historically derived from a “straight” heterosexist vantage point.

Reporters have the ability to create and access a number of effective framing devices when covering an issue like same-sex-marriage rights, the most common ones being: (1) legalistic/legislative, analyzing the impact of the various court cases surrounding the issue, and how particular judges may vote; (2) political, or “horse-race-style” coverage of public opinion polls on s

the issue and how gay marriage may impact the various senatorial campaigns n

and the presidential election; (3) as a civil rights issue, articulating with lan-l

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guage and images of former civil rights movements; or (4) as a love story, a human-interest, couple-centered frame that reports on a same-sex couple’s journey of meeting, falling in love, and ultimately attempting to marry. These framing devices, as previously indicated, do not “emerge” organical y, but are established by professional journalistic norms. These frames are not exhaus-tive nor are they mutual y exclusive; more often than not, several frames were used to structure a single news story.

For example, often in conjunction with the dominant conflict framing, a

majority of news stories framed gay marriage as a
political
issue (67.7 percent) and as a
legal
issue (60.2 percent). Since the same-sex-marriage debate often shared the same news cycle with electoral campaigns (e.g., the 2004 presidential campaign), the dominance of political framing was not surprising.

This framing device typically reported on how the issue was likely to affect upcoming races for Congress or the presidency. The political frame was also used to report on how voters were likely to decide on a variety of future referendums or ballot initiatives on same-sex-marriage rights, considering the issue was on the bal ot in 11 states during the 2004 election, three states during the 2008 election, and four states during the 2012 election. Political figures were prominent players in this story framing—figures like President George W. Bush, Senator John Kerry, Senator Bill Frist, and former Democratic

governor and 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean. Visuals featured

images of the candidates, as well as b-roll of the House or Senate floor, where congressional leaders were debating the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Legal framing reported on the issue in the legislative realm, often interpret-ing the legal impact or meaning of particular court cases—for example, the
Lawrence
case, which repealed anti-sodomy laws, or the historic
Goodridge
case, which legalized gay marriages in Massachusetts. These stories often cited legal scholars and constitutional law experts to report on “what the court said” or “how the court decided.” Legal stories might also report on how a court is likely to vote and the legislative maneuvering on the part of activists (both gay rights and conservative) to bring a case forward.

While less common than standard journalistic conflictual, political, and legal framing, many stories also contained the activist-preferred frames of same-sex marriage as a civil rights issue, or as simply a love story. As chapter 2 discusses, these frames came to represent a fundamental divide among

those in the marriage equality movement about how best to represent their cause. The majority of activists in the gay community during this time frame saw marriage as an issue of equal rights, similar to nondiscrimination in the workplace, equal access to health care and education, and so forth. But s

other activists were concerned that “rights” language would turn off news nl

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chapter four

audiences, insisting that marriage was not a set of “unemotional” rights, obligations, and responsibilities, but the ultimate expression of universal

“romantic love.”

Stories that framed the issue along the lines of
romantic love
(present in 25.8

percent of stories) typical y focused on the story of a couple and recounted their journey of meeting, falling in love, and eventual y seeking marriage rights.

Their love story was presented similarly to how a heterosexual love story would be told, often including still photos of the couple from a time when they met and interviewing the couple about what brought them together. Discourses of homosexual romantic love, popularized in films like
Brokeback Mountain
(2006), asks perceived “straight” audiences to empathize with the couple and see their love and their relationship as no different from their own.

Employed twice as often as romantic love framing,
civil rights
framing (present in 53.5 percent of stories) appeared to be more resonant to journalists, who structured stories within dominant paradigms of inequality and discrimination.

BOSTON, MA: Two women protest in favor of same-sex-marriage rights outside the Massachusetts State House on March 29, 2004, in Boston. Inside, the state legislature was entering the third round of debates over a possible constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage but allowing civil unions. News coverage s

of the gay marriage issue often evoked civil rights discourses. (Photo by Michael n

Springer/Getty Images)

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In fact, activists who promoted civil rights framing over love insisted that mainstream media outlets and news audiences were not ready to embrace stories of homosexual romance on the same level as “straight love.” In fact, in the words of one activist, romantic framing would only contribute to the “ick factor.” As she put it, promoting gay marriage as an extension of love would never “sel ”