The Battle Over Marriage: Gay Rights Activism Through the Media (23 page)

Anti-Gay Sources in a Fractured Media World

In this round of coverage, activists faced an increasingly ideologically frag-s

mented media universe. With fewer shared central media outlets that operate n

as the “defined public space” for audiences, activist informants said it was l

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harder to conclusively win an argument. Because there is no centralized

arena, with every story and in every media interview, “you’re always talking to somebody else.” Evan, as well as several other activists, discussed how the changing media universe made it more difficult to control the message.

“The way in which the media world has evolved, it’s much easier for people to channel their own message stream to their own people, and there’s less serious robust journalism that will really challenge garbage. It all gets put forward and it all finds an audience.”

In echoing the perspectives of the far right, many media reports ended

up leaving egregious claims unquestioned, claims like “Proposition 8 would force educators to teach gay marriage in schools,” “religious people are losing their rights,” or “homosexuality is the same as pedophilia and bestiality.” For example, national TV news reports cited Bill O’Reilly comparing gay marriage to interspecies marriage (ultimately allowing “for a person to marry a goat, a duck, or a dolphin” [O’Reilly, 2009, May 11]), and Mike Huckabee likened gay couples adopting children to taking in stray dogs (Franke-Ruta, 2010). Rather than weighing the accuracy of the sources and their claims, reporters simply covered it. As Marissa put it, “No matter the legitimacy of the group, they have equal weight in the media. In the press, one quote is worth one quote.”

Many of the anti-gay-marriage sources who were given the microphone in

this debate framed their opposition, not with credible, logical, or legitimate concerns, but, as Kate described, with the notion that gay and lesbian people are “sick, other, different, icky.” As a spokesperson for the leading national lesbian rights organization, she explained, “It could be CNN. It could be MSNBC. It can be the
New York Times
quoting our most virulent enemies, who, if they could deny us oxygen, they’d deny us oxygen. It’s not just [about]

marriage for them. It’s like the existence of gay people is repellent to them.

Yet [the press will] still constantly go back to them and have them quoted.”

Rather than basing the debate on the more legitimate concerns of expand-

ing marriage rights to same-sex families—like the impact on social services, how schools will respect gay and lesbian parents, or how gay divorces should be structured—opposing sources were typical y right-wing, anti-gay extremists whose homophobic perspectives were framed as reasonable arguments.

As Kate explained at length, “Who they [news organizations] put up instead are people who essentially say that gay and lesbian people are dangerous.

They are predatory. They are a threat. They are to be feared. They are going to undermine core values . . . We shouldn’t even have to be in that frame any s

longer, and I feel like it is an enormous failing—either through sometimes n

incompetence, but mostly just laziness of the mainstream media—that that’s l

the frame they continue to want to operate in.”

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As chapter 4 detailed, under the auspices of journalistic balance, reporters felt compel ed to interview a fringe opposition group to represent the “other side”

despite overwhelming community support for same-sex marriage. Regarding

the decision to legalize gay marriages in Iowa, for example, Marissa described a “tidal wave of support” for marriage equality, despite news framing of the

“controversy” that cited marginal extremist groups on the far right as credible opposing viewpoints. Informants accused the mainstream media as being an

“echo chamber” for the religious right, repeating falsehoods, lies, and diver-sions that ate up “huge amounts of airtime,” as Evan described, similar to the

“death panels” rhetoric in the debate over universal health care (claims that

“Obama-care” would pull the life support plug from Grandma).

Even though the oppositional sources in this round were fewer in number, activists pointed out how reporters continued to circulate unfounded and unchecked claims such as “This is about teaching gay marriage in schools,”

“This will force my church to marry gays,” or “Prop 8 proponents are the ones being victimized.” News coverage during this time period consistently aired these claims from conservative groups whose ratcheted-up rhetoric made

for “good” sound bites. For example, the May 15, 2008, evening newscast

of CNN began with a standard shot of cheering, exuberant couples outside the state courthouse following the California Supreme Court decision that would allow them to marry (Doss, 2008, May 15). But as the anchor reminds viewers, “Not everyone is celebrating.” An exasperated Randy Thomasson

of the Campaign for Children and Families tells reporters, “This is what the California Supreme Court has said: ‘Children, you have a new role model: Homosexual marriage. Aspire to it.’ This is a disaster!”

In another segment, the June 15, 2008,
CBS Evening News
cites Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, who argued that gay marriage

opens the door to polygamy: “You cannot just say, ‘Well, why not just two males or two females, why not then three or four?’ You’ve done away with the essential meaning of marriage” (Kaplan, 2008, June 15). ABC’s October 31, 2008, evening newscast explains that for evangelicals the Prop 8 outcome is more important than the presidential election. In a glaring instance of circulating vitriolic rhetoric from extremist conservative groups, ABC’s Dan Harris narrates, “It would force churches to marry gays, force schools to teach gay marriage, and open the door to pedophilia and bestiality.” An unidentified young woman is interviewed who flatly explains, “A person could say

‘I’m in love with my dog. Why shouldn’t we be married?’” (Banner, 2008,

October 31). Similarly, following the California Supreme Court decision to uphold the voter ban, a student protester outside city hall is interviewed by s

CBS news reporters, arguing, “Homosexual relationships. It’s unnatural. It’s n

unproductive. It’s detrimental to our society” (Kaplan, 2008, June 15).

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA: People from a group called America Forever join others at a rally in front of the California Supreme Court building as arguments are heard for and against Proposition 8 on March 5, 2009, in San Francisco. (Photo by David Paul Morris/Getty Images)

In addition, televised newscasts consistently replayed the most contro-

versial advertisements produced by conservative and religious groups, in essence providing a larger microphone for apocalyptic rhetoric and giving

“free airtime” to the anti-gay-marriage campaign. For example, in a split-screen debate between Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Jeff Kours of Equality California, CNN’s Campbell Brown displays a paid print advertisement put out by Perkins’s group. She reads the text of the ad to news audiences: “Beginning Monday, judges are removing the word ‘husband’

from California marriage certificates. The next step will be to remove the term ‘Father’ from birth certificates. Enjoy this Father’s Day . . . It might be your last” (Doss, 2008, June 15).

Likewise, it was common for news organizations to air the hyperbolic “Gathering Storm” advertisement produced by the National Organization for Marriage. After the gay marriage victories in Vermont and Iowa, the organization funneled $1.5 million into the campaign, mostly for ad buys in conservative s

districts. “Gathering Storm” featured people framed in a medium shot against n

a background of dark, ominous clouds swirling behind them, appearing as if a l

natural disaster was looming. The actors recite the ad’s scripted lines one by one: LC

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“There’s a storm gathering.” “It is dark.” “And I’m afraid.” The ad became a viral hit and, because of its questionable production values, was commonly spoofed on social media sites like YouTube as well as on sketch comedy programs

like
Saturday Night Live
. It was also regularly replayed on national television news programs, part and parcel in the coverage of the Prop 8 campaign. For example, CNN’s April 8, 2009, evening news broadcast (Doss, 2009, April 8) uses the ad to discuss the organization’s campaign to keep gay marriage il egal in California by making it “dark and scary.” They replay several seconds of the ad, then cut to an interview with Freedom to Marry’s Evan Wolfson, who cal s the ad “phony,” “from the zombie-like stares, to the actors reading the cue cards, to the arguments they’re making.” Airing these ads is “balanced”

in the journalistic sense only by giving a gay rights activist the opportunity to respond. Laudable as that is, giving airtime to vitriolic and irrational claims—

and calling it journalism—essential y validates these assertions as reasoned arguments worthy of debate. Alternately, advertisements from the marriage equality movement, which were not as controversial or acerbic, hardly ever appeared in news stories.

Citing the most extreme views on the far right often conflated with an-

other struggle for activists: overriding the stock “God vs. gays” framing that dominated mediated discourses about marriage. As chapter 4 highlighted,

religious figures have always been standard sources in mainstream cover-

age of the gay marriage debate. However, the moralistic framing of the issue grew more pronounced leading up to and following Proposition 8, presenting unique challenges for the movement about how to talk about religious values and the LGBT community.

On Religion: Tackling “God vs. Gays” Framing

In interviews conducted in 2010 and 2011, activist informants time and again discussed their struggle to combat the growing “God vs. gays” framing as “the

‘go-to’ story in the media.” This framing device consistently relied on using religious figures as the stand-in “default opposition” on the marriage issue, unwittingly pitting religious sources against gay couples or LGBT activists in the name of journalistic “balance.” As Jessica, a national news director, put it,

“We’ve been getting clobbered in the area of faith on TV for years. The loudest voices were getting the microphone.” This sourcing pattern gave opponent groups what Rick called “an unchallenged monopoly on issues of faith, flag, and family,” which, according to movement leaders, the gay movement had

in the past “ceded without a fight in many respects.”

s

Several groups struggled to separate
civil
marriage from
religious
marriage n

in the public eye in order to duck this very narrowly defined battle over l

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morality altogether. Others sought to make a religious case for gay marriage by inserting more pro-gay religious perspectives into news discourses. The legal battle over civil marriage rights is, of course, secular, unrelated to religious doctrine or practice. But in these larger cultural battles, marriage is rarely conceived of as a secular institution. Other gay rights issues, such as employment nondiscrimination, hate crimes legislation, bul ying in schools, AIDS research funding, and military service, are not conflated with religious and moral values in the same way marriage is. Because civil marriage and religious marriage are so intertwined in our culture, the prominent debate in the media was often staged on moralistic grounds, becoming about “forcing churches to marry gay couples,” as Michael put it.

In response, representatives of several of the national gay rights organizations I spoke with in 2010 and 2011 had, over the past year or two, hired someone in a full-time, director-level position to run faith-based outreach efforts and messaging campaigns. While several of these organizations had some religious outreach in 2004 and 2005, it was clear that by 2010 they had funneled additional resources into faith-based campaigns or had employed a new, high-ranking staff member to lead these efforts. As Jessica told me, this was a concerted effort on the part of the movement. “We [the Task

Force, HRC, GLAD] all have religion directors now . . . It’s all about getting progressive voices, coalitions of progressive faith leaders across the country, in news reports, making sure that we muddy the argument of ‘God versus

gays,’ because that is the real story.”

The development and growth of these positions highlights how the gay