The Battle Over Marriage: Gay Rights Activism Through the Media (24 page)

marriage controversy and its onslaught of media attention have pushed the LGBT equality movement to grow in new directions. Getting “beat up” on

moralistic arguments in the press over marriage increased the need for these new positions that were charged with reaching out and mending what is

typically seen as the “huge gulf” between the gay world and the religious world, as Julie put it. These staff positions are highly sophisticated in packaging pro-gay religious perspectives, reaching out to LGBT faith groups, building coalitions of supportive local and national clergy, and developing a larger “Rolodex” of spokespeople of faith who are willing to speak in favor of same-sex-marriage rights.

As Carisa, a communications strategist who had been working on gay

rights issues for more than 20 years, explained, it was important to diversify the list of religious spokespeople in the press. The movement “needed to go beyond the UUs [Universal Unitarians], the UCCs [United Church of Christ s

followers] and the reform Jews,” the only pro-gay religious sources that had n

appeared in earlier coverage. The movement now had to tell the story of the l

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Catholic mom who really struggled with her faith to come to terms with her son’s homosexuality, for example. It wasn’t enough to have the “usual suspects” of pro-gay religious sources anymore; movement leaders had to build a coalition of diverse faith-based organizations that would publicly support marriage equality. As one example, Marissa, who worked on the messaging

regarding the Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriages in the state, organized an interfaith alliance. Her organization crafted an amicus brief on behalf of people of faith, and more than 150 religious leaders in Iowa signed it to indicate their full support for marriage equality.

It’s difficult to tell, of course, if these strategies worked to help combat the

“God vs. gays” framing. The research goals and methodologies employed in this book are not designed to prove a cause-effect relationship between activist goals and media coverage. Nevertheless, compared to my previous media analysis, this sample of news stories from 2008 to 2010 indicated a higher likelihood of having supportive religious spokespersons and perspectives cited in news stories. This was almost never the case in coverage from my earlier analysis in 2003–2004. The conversation surrounding faith, religion, and gay rights became more multifaceted.

As one stand-out example, the December 15, 2008, issue of
Newsweek

featured Lisa Miller’s controversial cover story titled “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage.” Along with its attention-grabbing (if not somewhat sensationalistic) headline, the cover included an image of a Bible with a rainbow bookmark protruding from it. Her piece attacks the “God vs. gays” dualism, arguing, “Opponents of gay marriage often cite Scripture as the foundation of their objections . . . Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be [civilly and religiously] married—and a number of excellent reasons why they should” (Miller, 2008, p. 29). In that same issue, Lorraine Ali’s “Mrs. Kramer vs. Mrs. Kramer” unpacks the patchwork of legal protections for marriage and parenting that have devastating consequences for same-sex families (Ali, 2008, December 5, p. 32). This particular
Newsweek
issue, and several other stories like it, represented more complex, nuanced coverage of issues of faith and family, questioned social conservatives’ definition of morals, presented pro-gay religious perspectives in depth, and showcased the maturation of the issue in the press.

Several other news reports cited supportive clergy as sources (see, for example, the June 17, 2008, broadcast of the
CBS Evening News
[Kaplan, 2008, June 17]) and highlighted religious wedding ceremonies of gay couples getting married in a church by a col ared minister as opposed to having a quick ceremony in city hal . For example, the October 31, 2008, episode of ABC’s s

evening newscast (Banner, 2008, October 31) highlighted a case in which local nl

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clergy in conservative Kern County, California, took over performing same-sex ceremonies after the county clerk refused to do so. Supportive ministers told camera crews that marrying the couples was “the right thing to do.”

But the coverage leading up to and surrounding the controversial Prop-

osition 8 measure in California complicated the movement’s attempts to

highlight pro-gay religious perspectives. Reports focused on how religious organizations had funneled money into the voter initiatives that banned gay marriages in several states, and it was hard to ignore the impact of faith-based organizations in winning the vote. For example, on November 6, 2008, the day after the 2008 presidential election,
NBC Nightly News
attributed two factors to the Prop 8 victory: the preponderance of African American voters and the campaigning by religious groups. Reporters charged that “the huge outpouring of Christian groups raising millions” and a corresponding

“avalanche of television ads” led to the passage of Prop 8 (Wallace, 2008, November 6). For the b-roll that accompanied the journalistic narration, TV news crews panned a crowd of hundreds in a stadium who had camped

out to support the ban on gay marriages, showing the congregation singing, praying, and swaying with their eyes closed.

These and other reports highlighted religious groups praying en masse for God to “save” marriage. For example, the October 31, 2008, evening edition of ABC news (Banner, 2008, October 31) told the story of Prop 8 as one of religious conflict, arguing that “religious groups are pitted against one another in the Prop 8 battle.” The report began with an evangelical church in San Diego known as “The Call” where “dozens of members” were engaged in a 40-day

fast, praying around the clock for God to “stop gay marriage.” The camera panned the small room where a dozen or so people were screaming, singing, crying, and swaying. The camera focused on one man singing, “Jesus, you

are so beautiful,” with his eyes shut tightly, his arms outstretched skyward.

To highlight religious conflict, the reporter provided the “other side” of the story near the end of the segment, focusing on a “usual suspect” in the pro-gay camp—a Unitarian church “across town.” In this part of the segment, a lesbian couple who appeared to be in their late 40s gave news crews a tour of the church they were married in.

One emblematic television news report highlighted how churches had fu-

eled some $31 million into the anti-gay marriage campaign. As b-roll played of a pastor swaying in front of his majority-black congregation, the reporter narrated, “But what could be priceless is the boost the campaign gets every Sunday in church” (Kaplan, 2008, October 30). Likewise, CNN’s coverage of s

Prop 8 the day after its passage featured a graphic illustration of the major n

campaign fund-raisers, boiling it down to two competing forces: religious l

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groups on the one side, and Hollywood actors on the other. The split graphic represented, on one half of the screen, the “Yes on 8” campaign showing dollar signs and logos from Focus on the Family, the Knights of Columbus, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The other side, the “No on 8” campaign, featured head shots of Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg, and Ellen DeGeneres (Doss, 2008, November 6).

As described in this chapter’s introduction, news organizations widely

reported that the Mormon Church, “normally reluctant” to participate in

political campaigns, funneled tens of millions of dollars into the “Yes on 8” campaign. Church leaders reportedly had a letter read out loud in every church in California urging their members to do “all you can” to pass the initiative. Not surprisingly, then, after Prop 8 passed, the conflict-driven frame of angry gay protesters targeting the Mormon Church became a standard

storytelling device. As with other social conflict in the news, coverage of the Prop 8 protests were consistently framed “within paradigms of delinquency and disorder” (Parameswaran, 2004, p. 371). And as in the scene described by LOS ANGELES, CA: Hundreds of supporters of same-sex marriage marched

for miles in protest against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on November 6, 2008, in Los Angeles. The protest, which began outside the Los Angeles Mormon temple, opposed the massive financial contributions to the Proposition 8 campaign, the voter initiative that passed to make gay marriage s

illegal. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

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LOS ANGELES, CA: Same-sex marriage supporters sit down in Wilshire

Boulevard, blocking traffic, to protest against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on November 6, 2008. Protests against religious groups in the aftermath of Proposition 8’s passage further fueled the stock “God vs. gays”

framing in mainstream news coverage. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) CNN’s Anderson Cooper that opens this chapter, the most resonant television images and news photographs focused on visually dramatic protests, such as when gay marriage supporters blocked off part of Santa Monica Boulevard

in Los Angeles. According to news reports, gay marriage supporters weren’t just angry; they were retaliatory, blockading intersections, shouting outside of churches, and launching online campaigns to “blacklist” local businesses that had donated to the “Yes on 8” campaign.

Additionally, national coverage of the Iowa decision that legalized gay

marriages in April 2009 presented same-sex nuptials as incompatible with wholesome, American, middle-class family values. Legalizing gay marriage in Iowa represented a “seismic cultural shift,” reported CBS’s Katie Couric,

“in a place so often portrayed as a bastion of mainstream American values”

(Kaplan, 2009, April 4). Marissa, who had directed the messaging in Iowa for seven years, discussed how disappointed activists were with the “shock and awe” sensationalized coverage from the national news outlets. This com-s

munications director had worked to ensure that the reporters in Iowa’s major n

media markets were connected to and covering individual couples as “human l

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interest” stories, so that those covering the case were personally invested in the decision. Describing how “gay friendly” Iowa is, and the “tidal wave of support” behind the legislative outcome, activists were struck by how the local coverage differed from that of the national media outlets.

Analysis of activist interviews and media texts indicates how the move-

ment is struggling to define and tackle these questions of faith, religion, and values. Activists sought to either steer clear of moralistic arguments or at least diversify religious perspectives on gay issues. However, the journalistic lens repeatedly structured the issue as one of conflicting moral values, focusing on the role of religious organizations in shaping the vote, using religion as a standard frame to explain the gay marriage “setbacks” in 2008 and 2009.

Despite increased efforts to muddy the conversation surrounding religion and gay identity, media reports continued to rely on religious spokespersons as

“natural” opponents. Further complicating the reporting surrounding Prop 8

in particular was how issues of race and class became entangled with religious framing, positioning communities of color against the gay community.

“Playing the Race Card”:

Problematic Framing of Race in LGBT Issues

Often conflated with religious values, many activist informants in interviews conducted in 2010 and 2011 discussed the problematic framing of “racial