Sharg Our Way toward Equaly: Social Media and Gay Rights - Non Prof News | Nonprof Quarterly

Contents:

• HOW THE MEDIA HAS HELPED CHANGE PUBLIC VIEWS ABOUT LBIAN AND GAY PEOPLE
• MEDIA BIAS OVER GAY MARRIAGE
• NEW STUDY FDS MEDIA BIAS GAY MARRIAGE COVERAGE
• GAY MARRIAGE AND THE MEDIA
• THE SOCIAL-NETWORK EFFECT THAT IS HELPG LEGALIZE GAY MARRIAGE
• GAY MARRIAGE THE MEDIA
• SHARG OUR WAY TOWARD EQUALY: SOCIAL MEDIA AND GAY RIGHTS
• GAY MARRIAGE
• TEXAS JUDGE WHO DON’T WANT TO PERFORM GAY MARRIAGE CEREMONI HOP WEB SIGNER’S SUPREME COURT SE HELPS HER FIGHT

HOW THE MEDIA HAS HELPED CHANGE PUBLIC VIEWS ABOUT LBIAN AND GAY PEOPLE

On Twter and blogs last week, statements backg the right of gay upl to marry outnumbered those opposed by more than 2-to-1-ntug a trend that has surfaced before social media. The examatn clud the perd om May 6-the day that Vice Print Joseph Bin voiced his support on Meet the Prs-to May 13, five days after North Carola voted down gay marriage and four days after Obama’s statement. At the same time, an April 2012 survey by the Pew Fom on Relign & Public Life shows that younger people are more likely than any other age group to support gay marriage.

Some highlighted a May 7 article om the Daily Caller, reprted on the Fox News se, entled “Obama mpaign hs Romney on gay marriage-even though both are agast . “And if one 60+ year old woman, brought up a nservative small town, a tradnal marriage for 40+ years, n e to the ncln that gay marriage pos no threat to her or to any other straight people who are married, or want to get married… then n some still be foamg at the mouth?

Obama changed his md and spoke about publicly bee his base was losg patience wh him on the issue and mpaign ntributns om gay donors were dryg up.

MEDIA BIAS OVER GAY MARRIAGE

Increas reprentatns of gay people news, televisn, and movi started the 1990s – promently exemplified by Ellen DeGener’s g out on mastream Amerin televisn her portrayal of Ellen Men the ABC-s, Ellen. Portrayals of lbian women and gay men have ntued to crease over the two s sce they were featured popular shows like Will and Grace and Morn Fay; and the portrayals have and recently spread to shows for teenage dienc such as Glee and Teen Wolf. In an creasgly ternnected world, we hypothize that effects om virtual ntacts through media exposure to portrayals of lbian women and gay men should hold cross-natnally, pendg on the natnal media outlets willgns to transm portrayals.

We believe that the young people’s exposure to gay and lbians the media cis wh ntacts younger people have wh gay and lbian people and issu through other avenu of socializatn. However imperfect media portrayals of gay people may be – and however poor a substute for personal ntacts – the media do troduce new bat and new am of reference about homosexualy across multiple domtic ntexts.

Another route for change may have occurred as new media portrayals creased the terpersonal visibily of gay and lbian people and the likelihood that they would e out and openly reveal their inti to iends, neighbors, and -workers. In addn, given media portrayal n highlight more or ls sensatnal or ntroversial aspects of gay life, and ed often neglects the broad array of issu experienced by members of this diverse muny.

NEW STUDY FDS MEDIA BIAS GAY MARRIAGE COVERAGE

The takeaway of our rearch is that as the liberalizatn of attus towards gays and lbians has occurred many untri across the globe sce the 1980s, change has been enuraged part by munitns climat – wh and across natns – that allow for the ee transmissn of mory viewpots. To close gaps tolerance and cultural change, movements and lears mt enurage var forms of media to tell more accurate stori about lbian and gay people.

Our fdgs support the claim that ee media are sential for advancg gay rights and suggts that media eedom may need to prece efforts to secure gay rights legislatn. In rners of the globe where homosexual rights are still highly ntent, both personal and virtual ntacts nveyg posive imag of lbians and gays n lead to nstctive change. Homosexualy the larger culture was draped words, and onscreen pictns eher disguised gays and lbians or treated them as objects of ridicule or thgs started to change.

In 1969, the Stonewall rts triggered by a police raid New York’s Greenwich Village created the morn gay rights movement, and the next year William Friedk’s “The Boys the Band” beme the first stud movie to center on gay that start, pop culture has slowly but steadily helped brg gay people to the mastream, om Lance Loud the groundbreakg 1973 PBS documentary “An Amerin Fay” to Tom Hanks’ Osr-wng role as a dyg lawyer “Philalphia” 1993 to Pedro Zamora, the AIDS-stricken hoemate on the 1994 edn of MTV’s realy seri “The Real World. “Movi and televisn have played an immense role gettg here — and I’m gog to take some cred for the TV si, ” said Michael Lombardo, the programmg print of HBO, which brought the gay-themed plays “Angels Ameri” and “The Normal Heart” to televisn, and has promently featured gay characters on such seri as “Six Feet Unr, ” “Sex and the Cy” and “Lookg, ” about the relatnships of a group of gay iends San Francis.

GAY MARRIAGE AND THE MEDIA

“TV has been a powerful fluence bee brgs the liv of gays and lbians to people’s hom and that has creased people’s unrstandg, ” add Lombardo, who is gay.

But there are many other exampl of popular film and TV shows that have fluenced public Print Joe Bin famoly said 2012 that the NBC s “Will & Grace” had “done more to te the public” about gay issu than nearly anythg msage of clivens has often been told through edy, as when Mch and Cam, the ever-bickerg uple on ABC’s “Morn Fay, ” fally got married last year.

THE SOCIAL-NETWORK EFFECT THAT IS HELPG LEGALIZE GAY MARRIAGE

The Bravo realy seri “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” humoroly featured a team of gay experts offerg cluels heterosexual men tips on culture, fashn and other topics.

Prr to the 1970s, homosexualy was almost never directly addrsed pop culture; even the plays of Tennsee Williams, nsired groundbreakg their day, shroud the issue 1972 TV movie “That Certa Summer, ” wh Hal Holbrook and Mart Sheen, was the first to al sympathetilly wh a gay character wh the medium that domated the Amerin livg room. Conservativ were outraged when Billy Crystal played a gay man on the racy s “Soap, ” which ran om 1977 through 1981 — although that character later reversed himself and beme AIDS crisis, for years seen as a “gay plague, ” changed hearts and mds. The media were filled wh obuari of Hudson and other celebri who died of the disease, forcg some Amerins to rensir their opposn to gay rights on moral or relig a matter of public health and disease preventn, sexual matters once nsired unmentnable beme part of everyday disurse.

Activists, borrowg om the civil rights movement, poted out the ways which high-flown rhetoric about human rights and digny did not match official rpons to the gay health pop culture, a key turng pot may have been the 1994 season 3 telest of “The Real World, ” which featured Zamora, a Cuban-Amerin AIDS tor and ’s public stggle wh the illns prompted a supportive phone ll om Print Clton and was stmental shapg the views of lennials, who subsequently beme strong supporters of the movement to legalize same-sex followed were an creasg number of seri that offered gay characters om untls perspectiv, such as “Queer as Folk” and “The L-Word.

GAY MARRIAGE THE MEDIA

“The landmarks helped ph the nversatn forward, ” said Matt Kane, the director of entertament media for GLAAD, a gay-rights advocy group that grew out of s founrs’ unhapps wh pictns of gays and lbians mass, some experts see the same change happeng this year wh the transgenr muny. At the same time, I do thk that reporters often let their cultural predilectns drive their verage of social issu, and the verage of the gay marriage amendment offers a perfect example. " And "The Washgton Post", a ont page news analysis entled "A MOVE TO SATISFY CONSERVATIVE BASE, " asserted, "So when gay marriag advanced Massachetts and San Francis, Bh felt a need to rpond to the cri of social nservativ -- even if meant losg some swg voters he needs November.

Last month the Annenberg Center nducted a poll askg, "Would you favor or oppose a law your state that would allow gays and lbians to marry a partner of the same sex? The Pew Rearch Center has released a study examg media verage of gay marriage durg the perd leadg up to, durg, and after Supreme Court heargs on the issue. This study nfirms what most of already spected: that the surge public support for gay marriage has been a phenomenon largely driven by the media.

SHARG OUR WAY TOWARD EQUALY: SOCIAL MEDIA AND GAY RIGHTS

As the group most engaged wh new media trends and th most sceptible to media bias, this mographic’s overwhelmg support is a strong ditor of media’s semal role shapg gay marriage opns.

The most mon media argument – that this issue is one of civil rights – mers a parison of the gay marriage movement wh that of black civil rights.

Yet the mpaign leav a lot to be sired; “crics note that queer people of lour, trans, genrqueer and genr nonnformg youth, and lbians have not been spiratnally hailed by [the project] the same way as whe gay male liberals” (Puar). One predomant crique revolv around Savage’s own subject posn as an abled, monied, whe, cis man who is also gay– a subject posn whose experienc preclu those of trans, poor, POC, disabled, and non-man embodiments and is “a mandate to fold to urban, neoliberal gay enclav” which already privileg bodi like Savag’ (Puar). The assiatnist polics of the vios and the e of gay kids’ suicis “highlightg an exceptnal class of aspiratnal gay cizens at the expense of others” that Savage employs further disurag dissent and diversy orr to pat the gay muny (and queer futury) as a monolh of whe acceptabily and a sense of achievg some mythic normalcy.

GAY MARRIAGE

There is more power, we argue, the elimatn of such “narrow versns of what means to be gay, and what means to be bullied, that for those who nnot intify wh but are neverthels still targeted” as are picted the It Gets Better Campaign (Puar). Featurg many queer characters, HIV+ characters, characters of lor, and poor characters, their teractns give sight to not only media portrayals of queer people who fall outsi of the acceptable mold of whe, abled, upper-middle class gays. Angel is, pendg on the versn, eher genrqueer, a drag queen, or transgenr (st members often alternate between he/him and she/her pronouns wh a sgle productn), is queer, HIV posive, and Latx while Colls is a black, gay HIV posive man.

Gay marriage, while touted as proof of ‘progrs’ ntemporary tim, is still an overwhelmgly whe movement, and this is bee the class, racial, and acceptabily polics of marriage often exclu people of lor om the begng, and “the Black fay, heterosexual, same-sex or otherwise, is always portrayed as dysfunctnal” (Farrow).

TEXAS JUDGE WHO DON’T WANT TO PERFORM GAY MARRIAGE CEREMONI HOP WEB SIGNER’S SUPREME COURT SE HELPS HER FIGHT

The language of home and shelter is seen more of a mutual exchange of emotnal, sexual, and genr labor rather than any subscriptn to stutnal norms of marriage which do not “addrs [one’s] most cril needs as a black gay man to be able to walk down the streets of [one’s] muny wh [one’s] lover”(Farrow).

Given as an explanatn of why gay marriage is anti-black, Farrow poss that “Given the current whe heteronormative nstctns of fay and how the stutns of marriage and nuclear fai have been ed agast Black people, I do thk that to support same-sex marriage is fact, anti-Black (I also believe the stutn of marriage to be historilly anti-woman, and don’t support for those reasons as well). However, another glargly obv reason for the ways which the characters of Rent disda marriage is that they don’t know if they’ll live long enough to make marriage worth the effort– Roger, Mimi, Angel, and Colls all have AIDs, and although “homosexualy is celebrated, ” the life support meetgs which some of the characters attend unrsre the temporaly of life and love, and drive home the mentaly of survivg another day which preclus any fantasy of marriage:. Namely, what are the optns for makg popularized gay liberatn movements more clive and ls pennt on assiatn to hegemonic systems of power that have historilly served to exclu the non-whe and non-wealthy?

Gay marriage is one such example which the media has taken other perspectiv and approach to prentg on the topic, rather then beg rmative. The media is, more often than not, skewed s prentatn on the issue of gay marriage, hence promisg the accuracy of rmatn provid to viewers.