Thursday, January 20, 2011

1/21/11

My social movement watch this semester is going to be the gay rights movement, and sometimes more generally, LGBTQ rights.  I'm having a little bit of trouble working out this Google Reader thing...this week I'm going to focus on gay marriage specifically.  So here is some of the news that I found about my social movement this week:

An interesting development this week was Elton John speaking out as pro gay marriage at a charity event in L.A., when previously, he had stated that he had no desire to get married and was fine with a civil partnership with his partner, David Furnish.  Some think that John recently becoming a father with Furnish may have changed his opinions.  He now states, "It seems so ridiculous I could be with my partner for 17 years and we have a son, and my partner and I can't get married."  He then threw out the F-bomb, to a rousing cheer and applause from the audience.

Also this week...a setback in Iowa as Republicans hope to ban both gay marriage and civil unions.  This is an effort to reverse a unanimous State Supreme Court decision in 2009 in favor of marriage equality.  But in Washington, D.C., the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the legalization of gay marriage.  Bishop Harry Jackson wanted to state his case against same-sex marriage, but the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics refused to put a marriage initiative on the ballot, saying it would be discrimination if they did so.  Go D.C.!

Another interesting blog I found was Dan McLaughlin writing that same-sex couples are far less likely to have children than opposite-sex couples.  He gives numerous statistics on this and then goes on to say that this is a compelling reason why same-sex couples should not be allowed to get married.  This was one of the first links that came up when I searched for blogs/articles about gay marriage.

The tone of most of the coverage...was pretty mellow.  With the exception of the Elton John story, most of the articles were fairly short, with just a few paragraphs.  Nothing seemed to stir things up, it was just kind of the same 'ol, same 'ol.  There didn't seem to be too much news; my search resulted in many different websites and blogs with the same three stories over and over again that I mentioned.  I think this social movement might be in kind of a stagnant place right now, from what I can see in the news from the search on gay marriage that I did.  No really big setbacks, no really big successes either.  But that could definitely change in a very short period of time.

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http://www.redstate.com/dan_mclaughlin/2011/01/19/the-winning-statistic-in-the-same-sex-marriage-debate/
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/supreme_court_rejects_gay_marriage_challenge_in_dc.php
http://www.accesshollywood.com/elton-john-lashes-out-at-gay-marriage-opponents_article_42589?__source=rss%7Clatest_news
http://www.religiousrightwatch.com/2011/01/iowa-gop-hopes-to-ban-gay-marriage-civil-unions-pastors-mobilizing-to-dismiss-liberties-revoke-right.html

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