The Battle Over Marriage: Gay Rights Activism Through the Media (26 page)

decision had put his marriage to his partner, Jeff, in limbo. In writing about the failings of the marriage equality campaign, he argued that the “No on 8”

ads were offensive and disingenuous: “Gay leaders decided the best way to fight Prop 8 was downplay the ‘gay angle’ so as not to offend the undecideds.

That’s right: no gay people allowed in commercials defending gay marriage.

Instead, we got Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other well-meaning straight folk talking about the danger of eliminated ‘fundamental rights’ and stretching beyond credulity by comparing the ballot initiative to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II” (p. 54).

This strategic decision to, as Davina put it, “de-gay” gay marriage divided the movement. Some groups just wanted to “do what it takes to win elections,”

as Patrick said. These informants argued that supportive allies—parents of gay couples, supportive clergy, progressive politicians, women of faith, and the like—should stand in as spokespersons for the movement. Non-gay allies as sources are more effective messengers “for many non-gay people,” as one activist said, because “it’s easier for them to hear from somebody they can relate to, they identify with.” Elizabeth explained: “This is going to sound horrible, but if keeping couples out of commercials and the media means

we’re going to win marriage equality, then [our organization] would probably be like, okay, our goal is to win marriage equality so that these couples can have rights and benefits, not be on TV.”

Others in the movement criticized the controversial move that worked to

“whitewash” same-sex marriage, arguing that the research was unfounded

and that the campaign’s removal of gay couples smacked of what Davina

s

called “internalized homophobia.” Groups like the Family Equality Council n

protested the decision, arguing, “We have to convince them [the coalition]

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that this is not right—that our children should be in these pictures.” Another said, “You’re so stuck on the polling and the numbers that you’re keeping this from being what it really is, which is about gay people and gay couples.” As a result, when it came to Question 1 in Maine the following year, organizers went against the “overwhelming evidence” and decidedly inserted gay couples and families back into the campaign messaging, only to lose again. Speaking specifically about an advertisement that featured a lesbian couple and their teenage son, Patrick said, “In Maine [the campaign] essentially said ‘f off’ to the research and we’re going to do it our way. And here we lose again because that campaign was done—and they came close to winning—but that

campaign was done to satisfy activists . . . not to actually win.”

Understandably, these competing tactics and the ensuing losses forced

movement leaders to engage in a series of “uncomfortable conversations.”

What resulted was an even greater rift between what Mol y termed the “grass roots” of the movement, the couples and activists who work outside of the professional gay establishment, and “Gay, Inc.,” a select group of elite social actors who work for professional organizations on behalf of the movement.

She referred to this tension as a “class divide” between the grassroots members and elite gay organizations. “You [the grass roots] just don’t have the same opportunities. You hope that maybe you’ll run into a rich, gay donor that’s like, ‘I really like what you guys are doing and I’m going to write you a check,’ but it tends to not happen. They [Gay, Inc.] tend to like their galas and dinners where they get to invite their friends. This is sort of something they get to do as a social [thing], primarily, and secondarily making change in the world.”

The central criticisms of the campaign from within the movement went

beyond the absence of gay and lesbian people in the actual messaging and campaign materials. My activist informants also discussed the campaign’s failure to effectively target messaging to racial and ethnic minorities, like translating materials into Spanish or buying airtime in the heavily Latino-populated Central Valley, the large, flat agricultural area that dominates central California. Molly described her attempt to influence the campaign’s executive committee of the value of Latino outreach.

Why don’t we have any support or visibility or media buys in the Central Valley? It’s a total moveable place there. Our people out there are at the brunt of the anti-gay hatred, and we need to show up for them when we do these big things. They’ve got to see us there. They’re begging. They’re pleading. “Do something.” We showed them facts and statistics showing how much cheaper s

it was to buy there—if you buy Spanish-language, how much cheaper it was.

You get so much more bang for your buck. Every different angle we could

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think of. Morally, financially, looking at the demographics in the voters and the possibilities. Deaf ears.

Davina went as far as to argue that the exclusion of Latino voters in the campaign was inadvertently racist. “What is it, 40 percent of our population is Latino. Give me a break. And you’re not going to do stuff in Spanish?

Maddening . . . It was racist.”

Movement leaders also cited a failure to call upon and use supportive

religious spokespersons because the “No on 8” campaign felt it would be

“confusing,” effectively pushing away the California Council of Churches, who came forward with clergy wanting to advocate for marriage equality.

Several movement leaders told me that in the end the campaign failed to

create a compelling message or reason why voters should vote no on Prop

8. Rather than tackling discrimination, the convoluted message was instead,

“It’s okay if you are unsure about gay marriage,” because no matter how you feel, you should still vote no on Prop 8. For example, one ad called “The Conversation” featured two 30-something Caucasian women sitting in their kitchen looking at photographs together:

Woman 1: Here’s Bob at the barbeque.

Woman 2: [laughing] Look at his sunburn.

Woman 1: And here’s our niece, Maria, and her partner, Julie, at their wedding.

Woman 2: Listen, honestly, I just don’t know how I feel about this same-sex-marriage thing.

Woman 1: No, it’s okay. And really, I think it’s fine if you don’t know how you feel. But are you willing to eliminate rights and have our laws treat people differently?

Woman 2: No.

Male Voice-over: Don’t eliminate marriage for anyone. Vote no on Prop 8.

Citing this example, Davina criticized the campaign for relying on weak

language, unclear messaging, and backpedaling. This ad in particular used the label of “partner” over “wife” or “spouse” in a campaign where the movement was trying to distinguish between the limitations of domestic “partnership” benefits and the rights afforded to married couples. Additionally, the campaign defined the issue as “this same-sex-marriage thing,” echoing the framing of conservative opposition groups. Too fearful of offending undecideds, the campaign narrowed its political aims to avoid overtly confronting heterosexism and discrimination. The frustration and anger from grass roots movement leaders stemmed from the fact that they had raised the money to s

fund what was essentially an ineffectual campaign for Gay, Inc. As Davina n

explained, “[We’re] the people who wrote checks to the No on 8 campaign.

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We paid for them . . . All our money from our wedding—our real wedding,

finally—instead of getting gifts, please write checks, right? So we paid for this kind of airtime.”

The loss of marriage rights in 2008 in a progressive area on the “liberal Left Coast” was painful enough, but for many of the movement leaders I spoke

with, powerlessly watching the mistakes unfold during the campaign made

the loss even more demoralizing. This divide within the movement over

media strategies and messaging exemplifies my larger theoretical concerns about the complex relationship between social movements, media discourses, and the possibilities for social change. I turn to these issues in my concluding chapter.

Conclusion: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

In many ways the evolution of the same-sex-marriage debate in 2008 and

2009 represented the best of times and the worst of times. Additional states were moving forward in legalizing same-sex-marriage rights for gay couples, and more and more people said they supported those rights. In news coverage, stories highlighted an overall “pro-gay” tone in which gay and lesbian perspectives were privileged, opposition groups were granted less of a presence, pro-gay religious and political sources had a stronger voice, and even social conservatives like Laura Bush came out in support of same-sex-marriage rights, which muddied the issue. It was, after all, Ted Olson, a lifelong Republican who served under the Reagan and Bush administrations, who took

on the federal case to restore same-sex-marriage rights in California. In a controversial
Newsweek
cover story, titled “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage” (2008), Olson wrote: “Many of my fellow conservatives have an

almost knee-jerk hostility toward gay marriage. This does not make sense, because same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize. Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our neighborhoods and our nation . . .

The fact that individuals who happen to be gay want to share in this vital social institution is evidence that conservative ideals enjoy widespread acceptance. Conservatives should celebrate this, rather than lament it” (p. 48).

Simultaneously, the media’s stock “God vs. gays” and “blacks vs. gays”

perspectives problematically dominated the framing of the marriage debate, in particular the Prop 8 coverage. Under the glare of the national media spotlight, and forced into an election year campaign, movement leaders were pressured to fight civil rights battles in a media-centric public sphere. Concerns over controlling the message, appealing to the moveable middle, and s

winning elections proved exclusionary. Gay and lesbian couples and their nl

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families, once central to the movement’s messaging strategy, were purposeful y removed from the campaign, replaced by a cadre of allies who advocated for civil rights on their behalf. Certainly, building a coalition of diverse groups is both laudable and necessary in moving social justice causes forward. But for many in the movement, tempering the debate only avoided confronting

discrimination and heterosexism at its core. From the perspective of these activists, erasing gay images and voices not only hurt the campaign for marriage equality but also demoralized the movement from within.

These tensions, of course, are not unique to the issue of marriage equality or to the gay rights movement more generally. As Sarah Sobieraj demonstrates in her book
Soundbitten
(2011), in the quest to gain visibility, to reach and move the public through the channels available in a commercial media system, activist organizations have little to gain and much to lose. Her research across 50 diverse organizations found that these efforts not only prove ineffectual, but they also come with potentially disastrous consequences for organizational life. Most activist groups fail to attract the media attention they so desperately seek, and their tireless pursuit of these strategies often works to alienate members and stifle internal dialogue. One of the consequences of a “public relations” approach to political discourse is that activist groups tend to approach members as “potential liabilities in need of management, rather than as trusted peers able to make valuable contributions” (Sobieraj, 2011, p. 136). As I consider in my concluding chapter, the movement gained a considerable amount of visibility over the marriage debate, but it also faced external confrontations and internal struggles as a result.

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6. Conclusion

The Trouble with Marriage

Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural

roots without weakening the good influence of society.

—President George W. Bush, February 25, 2004,

calling for a federal constitutional amendment

to define marriage as a one man–one woman union

Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are

treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created

equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be

equal as well.

—President Barack Obama, January 21, 2013, in his second

inaugural address, arguing that same-sex couples should

be allowed to marry legally

In the 2000s “the politics of social difference and gay identity” moved to the center stage in mainstream cultural debate (Becker, 2006, p. 219). The intense media coverage surrounding the issue of same-sex marriage, launched by the
Lawrence
decision in June 2003, fueled America’s “straight panic” (Becker, 2006; Walters, 2001b). Straight America had come head to head with the

politics of heterosexual privilege over the issue of same-sex-marriage rights.

At the center of this confrontation was the fear that gay marriage would destabilize traditional heterosexual unions. For example, the March 3, 2004, episode of
CBS Nightly News
(Reiss, 2004, March 3) featured video of a newly married gay couple jubilantly squeezing their three adopted children in a celebratory family embrace. The ominous voice dubbed over the image was