The Battle Over Marriage: Gay Rights Activism Through the Media (3 page)

Beginning in the summer of 2003, a series of legal and political events

pushed gay marriage to the forefront of mainstream politics. In June 2003

Ontario, Canada, legalized marriage for same-sex couples, opening the door to thousands of Canadian couples, as well as American couples who crossed the border, to marry without restrictions. That same month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in
Lawrence v. Texas
that all 13 remaining state sodomy laws were unconstitutional. Considered a landmark case for gay civil rights, conservative judges and activists warned that the ruling would open the door to the legalization of same-sex marriage (see chapter 3 for a discussion of this case).

At the state level, gay rights activists and same-sex couples who wanted to marry legally challenged state-level DOMA legislation. Activists argued that to deny gays and lesbians marriage rights under the law was discriminatory and unconstitutional. In November 2003 the Massachusetts Supreme

Judicial Court ruled on behalf of seven plaintiff couples in
Goodridge et al.

v. Department of Public Health,
arguing that the state constitution mandates that same-sex couples should have access to civil marriage. Three months later, in February 2004, the Massachusetts court clarified its earlier decision in
Goodridge
and ruled that anything less than marriage—including civil union arrangements—fails to provide equal protections for same-sex couples and is therefore unconstitutional under the law.

That same month, as detailed earlier in this chapter, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom defied California law and issued same-sex marriage licenses to more than 3,900 gay and lesbian couples. Newsom told
Nightline’
s Ted Koppel that his motivation to issue the licenses was to end what he saw was a discriminatory practice in the state of California, and also in part as a retaliatory response to the Bush administration’s political agenda. As he explained on
Nightline,
Newsom was emphatic that buried in the president’s 2004 State of the Union Address was a thinly disguised attempt to amend the Constitution in order to ban same-sex marriages. “It was crystal clear to me, and I imagine the tens of millions of Americans that were watching [the State of the Union], that this was a political strategy for the White House to play some divide and conquer strategy to placate their right, in an effort to advance a political agenda

. . . The president, he can fly on some aircraft carrier any time he wants, but he s

should keep his hands off the Constitution” (Sievers, 2004, February 24).

nl

LC

Moscowitz_BattleoverMarriage_text.indd 7

7/29/13 9:38 AM

8

chapter one

In the days and weeks that followed, several other cities like Portland, Oregon, and New Paltz, New York, began issuing licenses to same-sex couples.

Immediately, President George W. Bush publicly announced his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment that would make same-sex marriages in

any state il egal and unconstitutional. Echoing concerns from his conservative base, he said that in the wake of the Massachusetts and San Francisco decisions, “activist judges” and local authorities had too much power to redefine

“the most fundamental institution of civilization” (Sievers, 2004, February 24). Since the Constitution was first ratified, it has been amended 27 times, the first 10 of these making up the Bill of Rights. Thus, President Bush argued before Congress that the matter of gay marriage had risen to the level of constitutional concern: “If we are to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment.”

Three months after their decision to make same-sex marriages constitu-

tional, on May 17, 2004, the state supreme court denied a last-minute appeal and Massachusetts became the first state to issue state-sanctioned same-sex marriage licenses (DePasquale, 2004). In front of television cameras and newspaper reporters, all seven plaintiff couples from the
Goodridge
case married that day. The historic moment in the movement for marriage equality drew attention from media outlets throughout the country and around the

globe (the “I do” heard around the world), as “the dramatic cultural milestone generated headlines and commentary everywhere from Rio de Janeiro

to Prague” (Jurkowitz, 2004, p. 1). The director of
Newseum,
a website that posts the front pages of 300 newspapers on a daily basis, proclaimed that the same-sex-marriage case in Massachusetts “is what we call an ‘A story day’”

(Jurkowitz, 2004, p. 1).

Nevertheless, the successful “cultural milestone” that gay rights activists had achieved in the courts did not appear to hold up in the court of public opinion. The day gay and lesbian couples were first married in Massachusetts, anti–gay marriage protesters chanted, “We’ll remember in November.” On

Election Day, November 2004, they held true to their promise. The intense campaigning efforts of gay marriage opponent groups like the Defense of

Marriage Coalition, the Family Research Council, and the Christian Coalition, resulted in bal ot initiatives in 11 states to ban same-sex marriages. Many political analysts argued that the issue of gay marriage “was a key part of Karl Rove’s turnout strategy,” bringing social conservatives supporting George W.

Bush to the polls in record numbers (Rosenberg & Breslau, 2004, p. 23). By comfortable margins, all 11 states—including Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, s

Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, Utah, and

n

Oregon—voted to prohibit same-sex marriages. In some states, including

l

LC

Moscowitz_BattleoverMarriage_text.indd 8

7/29/13 9:38 AM

Gay Marriage in an Era of Media Visibility

9

Ohio, Michigan, and Utah, anti-marriage groups successfully pushed mea-

sures that not only banned gay marriage but also repealed domestic partnership benefits that even affected unmarried heterosexual couples (Rosenberg

& Breslau, 2004).

These losses prompted some of the more prominent gay rights organiza-

tions that had lobbied for same-sex marriage to rethink their political strategy and moderate their goals (Broder, 2004; Lester, 2004). As Matt Foreman, then director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (commonly known as

the Task Force), said, “There now is a profound realization that this struggle is going to go on for a very long time” (Lester, 2004). The Human Rights Campaign announced they would recruit more non-gay members, expand

their platform to take on human rights more broadly, and educate the public about equal protections for gays rather than foregrounding marriage as their major political goal. Groups also said they would take a cautious approach to sponsoring legal chal enges at the state level, focusing on civil unions instead of marriage. At this juncture, activists said they were generally concerned that challenging and even winning these propositions in court would only fuel a conservative backlash, “like pouring gasoline onto the fire for purposes of the federal marriage amendment” (Liptak, 2004).

In the aftermath of the November 2004 election, conservatives continued

to push state-by-state for amendments banning same-sex marriages. As a

result, several other states like Indiana and Iowa that already had laws banning gay marriage also rapidly pushed to amend their state constitution to ensure that same-sex unions would not gain legal rights, benefits, or protections. During the midterm election in November 2006, several other states passed constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriages, including

Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and

Wisconsin.

In 2008 media outlets around the country focused intently on the activity surrounding California’s Proposition 8, the most expensive bal ot proposition of the year. Prop 8 proponents sought to overturn the May 2008 California Supreme Court ruling that had legalized same-sex marriages in the state. On November 5, along with securing the election of President Barack Obama, 52

percent of the state’s voters also voted “yes” to the constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriages. Hoping for similar results, same-sex-marriage opponents in Maine organized a referendum that in November 2009 brought

the issue to public vote, which also narrowly passed and banned gay mar-

riages in that state.

Despite these losses, gay rights proponents scored several legislative

s

and judicial victories in 2008 and 2009. In this time period, garnering

nl

LC

Moscowitz_BattleoverMarriage_text.indd 9

7/29/13 9:38 AM

10

chapter one

widespread news media attention, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and New

Hampshire legalized same-sex unions (Connecticut and Iowa as a result of state supreme court rulings; Vermont and New Hampshire through their

state legislatures). Maine’s state legislature also legalized gay marriages in May 2009, but the vote was overturned by the public referendum in November 2009.

In March 2010 Washington, D.C., joined these five states (Connecticut,

Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont) in granting marriage

licenses to same-sex couples. In June 2011 New York became the sixth and largest state to legalize same-sex marriages after the state GOP–controlled senate voted in favor of a gay marriage bill. At the time of this writing, gay marriage in California has recently been restored, yet legal challenges remain. In August 2010, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker struck

down the voter initiative as unconstitutional, but Prop 8 proponents ap-

pealed the decision. In December 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to

hear the California case, as well as another case from New York state. These decisions, announced in June of 2013, solidified two major victories for the gay rights movement and have been hailed as landmark cases for civil rights.

The Supreme Court struck down the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act

(DOMA) as unconstitutional. In addition, arguing that Prop 8 sponsors did not have legal standing to defend the initiative in court, the justices dismissed the appeal and by extension resumed same-sex marriages in California.

The Supreme Court decisions followed the Obama administration’s an-

nouncement two years prior that it would no longer defend the constitutionality of DOMA. In March 2011, in what U.S. news media dubbed a “policy

reversal,” Obama said the act violated the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment. This declaration came on the heels of the Congressional repeal of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, ending the 17-year law that banned gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.

One year later the Obama administration’s position on same-sex marriage

was overtly clarified. In what the
New York Times
referred to as “a wrenching personal transformation on the issue,” in May 2012 Obama told the American public that he supports gay marriage (Calmes & Baker, 2012). After two years of saying that his views were “evolving,” Obama said his public proclamation was driven by conversations with his gay friends, his wife, and daughters. In a sit-down interview on ABC’s
Good Morning America,
he told Robin Roberts,

“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able s

to get married” (Calmes & Baker, 2012).

nl

LC

Moscowitz_BattleoverMarriage_text.indd 10

7/29/13 9:38 AM

Gay Marriage in an Era of Media Visibility

11

Political strategists and reporters speculated that it was Vice President Joe Biden who forced the president’s hand on the issue, as just 48 hours earlier Biden had broadcast his backing of gay marriage on the Sunday morning

talk show
Meet the Press.
Obama’s “transformation” on the issue was in many ways not all that surprising, considering his leadership in repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tel ” policy and his reversal on DOMA. Many voters already presumed that the president supported marriage rights for same-sex couples and that his proclamation wasn’t tied to specific policy initiatives. As Massachusetts senator Barney Frank said, “‘Political y, it’s kind of a nonevent’”

(Calmes & Baker, 2012).

Yet the symbolic significance of the first sitting president—and the first African American president at that—to openly acknowledge his support for marriage equality was hard to dismiss. The president threw one of the most politically charged social issues into the ring yet again, during what was expected to be a close election, risking an unpredictable fallout (Calmes & Baker, 2012). However, as the results of the 2012 election indicated, the president’s move wasn’t that risky after all. Obama was reelected by a comfortable margin, and for the first time in history, three states approved gay marriage measures at the ballot box—Maryland, Maine, and Washington—bringing

the total number to nine states where same-sex marriage is legal. Obama’s second term began with his resolute support for same-sex marriage and gay rights more broadly, the first president to take up both in an inaugural address (see concluding chapter).

The battles that continue to wage surrounding these legal and political

events have kept the issue of same-sex-marriage rights at the center of cultural debate and in the media spotlight. This evolving coverage of contemporary gay civil rights issues like military inclusion and gay marriage in the 2000s unfolded against a backdrop of increased gay-themed programming

in mainstream entertainment media. In order to understand the battle over marriage in the news media, it is first important to consider the significance of this rise of gay images and narratives in the media.

The Rise of Gay-Themed Media

The debate over same-sex-marriage rights has erupted during a period