{"id":44935,"date":"2012-02-12T12:49:05","date_gmt":"2012-02-12T17:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=44935"},"modified":"2012-02-13T00:00:17","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T05:00:17","slug":"naming-and-framing-marriage-between-people-of-the-same-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/02\/12\/naming-and-framing-marriage-between-people-of-the-same-sex\/","title":{"rendered":"Naming Marriage Between People of the Same Sex"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

It can take a while to find the right word.\u00a0 But a\u00a0mot juste<\/em>\u00a0may be crucial for framing a political issue. If you like the idea of men being able to marry men, and women women, what should you call the new laws that would allow that?<\/p>\n

The trouble with \u201cgay marriage\u201d and even \u201csame-sex marriage\u201d is that these terms suggest \u2013 especially to conservatives \u2013 some kind of special treatment for the minority.\u00a0 It\u2019s as though gays are getting a marriage law just for them.<\/p>\n

At last, the gay marriage forces seem to have come up with a term that invokes not special treatment but a widely-held American value that\u2019s for everyone \u2013 equality.\u00a0 A bill in\u00a0 New Jersey has been in the news this week, mostly because Gov. Christie says he will veto it.\u00a0 The bill is a \u201cmarriage equality\u201d law.<\/p>\n

The governor is in a bit of a squeeze.\u00a0 As a Republican with ambitions beyond New Jersey\u2019s borders, he can\u2019t very well be for gay marriage.\u00a0 But if his opponents can frame the matter their way, he now has to come out against equality.\u00a0 Which is why the governor continues to refer to the issue as \u201csame-sex marriage.\u201d*<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like \u201cabortion rights\u201d or even \u201cwomen\u2019s rights.\u201d A phrase like that might rally women to your cause, but if you want broader support, you need a flag that every American can salute.\u00a0 I\u2019m not familiar with the history of abortion rights so I don\u2019t know how it happened, but those who want to keep abortion legal have managed to frame the issue as one of freedom to choose.\u00a0\u00a0 They have been so successful that the media routinely refer to their side as \u201cpro-choice.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 To oppose them is to oppose both freedom and individual choice, principles which occupy a high place in the pantheon of American values.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear that the \u201cmarriage equality\u201d movement has been similarly successful, at least not yet.\u00a0 I did a quick Lexis-Nexis search sampling the last week of the months January and July going back to 2007.\u00a0 I looked for three terms: “same-sex marriage,” “gay marriage,” and “marriage equality.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

The general trend for all three is upwards as more legislatures consider bills, with big jumps when a vote becomes big news \u2013 that blip in July 2011 is the New York State vote.\u00a0 But the graph can\u2019t quite show how \u201cmarriage equality\u201d has risen from obscurity.\u00a0 That first data point, July 2007, is a 4.\u00a0 Four mentions of \u201cmarriage equality\u201d while the other terms had 25 and 50 times that many.\u00a0 As of last week, \u201cgay\u201d and \u201csame sex\u201d still outnumber \u201cequality,\u201d but the score is not nearly so lopsided.<\/p>\n

Here is a graph of the ratio of \u201cequality\u201d to each of the other two terms.\u00a0 From nearly 1 : 20 (one \u201cmarriage equality\u201d for every 20 \u201cgay marriages\u201d) the ratio has increased to 1 : 3 and even higher when the discussion gets active.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

If the movement is successful, that upward trend should continue.\u00a0 When you hear Fox News referring to \u201cmarriage equality laws,\u201d you\u2019ll know it\u2019s game over.<\/p>\n

———————————<\/p>\n

* Christie is usually politically adept, but he\u2019s stumbling on this one.\u00a0 He referred to a gay legislator as \u201cnumb nuts\u201d (literally, that might not necessarily be a liability for a politician caught in a squeeze).\u00a0\u00a0 Christie also said that he\u2019s vetoing the bill so that the matter can be put on the ballot as a referendum \u2013 you know, like what should have happened with civil rights in the South. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Several critics, including Numb Nuts, responded that, yes, Southern whites would have been happy to have civil rights left up to the majority.\u00a0 African Americans not so much.\u00a0 (If you\u2019re looking for an illustration of Tocqueville\u2019s \u201ctyranny of the majority,\u201d the post-Reconstruction South might be a good place to start.)\u00a0 The analogy is obvious \u2013 race : 1962 :: sexual orientation : 2012 \u2013 even if it was not the message the governor intended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog. It can take a while to find the right word.\u00a0 But a\u00a0mot juste\u00a0may be crucial for framing a political issue. If you like the idea of men being able to marry men, and women women, what should you call the new laws that would allow that? The trouble with \u201cgay marriage\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2056,23384,272,129,85,283,54],"class_list":["post-44935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crimelaw","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-marriagefamily","tag-media","tag-politics","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-sexual-orientation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44935"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44939,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44935\/revisions\/44939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}