Articulating Civil Rights Rhetoric

247 Pages·2011·0.8 MB·English

by  Michelle Kelsey

(Re)Articulating Civil Rights Rhetoric:
A Critical Intersectional Approach to the No on 8 Campaign in California
by
Michelle L. Kelsey

A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy

Approved April 2011 by the
Graduate Supervisory Committee:

Daniel Brouwer, Chair
Adina Carlson
Keith Miller

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
May 2011
ABSTRACT

California's Proposition 8 revoked the right to marriage for that state's gay
and lesbian population. Proposition 8 was a devastating defeat for gay marriage
movements across the nation. The primary rhetorical strategy of the No on 8
campaign was a reliance on a Civil Rights analogy that constructed the gay and
lesbian movement for marriage as a civil right akin to those fought for by African
Americans in the 1950s and 1960s. Analogizing the gay and lesbian struggle for
gay marriage with the racial struggles of the Civil Rights Movement exposed a
complicated relationship between communities of color and gay and lesbian
communities. This project reads critical rhetoric and intersectionality together to
craft a critical intersectional rhetoric to better understand the potentialities and
pitfalls of analogizing the gay rights with Civil Rights. I analyze television ads,
communiqués of No on 8 leadership, as well as state level and national court
decisions related to gay marriage to argue alternative frameworks that move away
from analogizing and move towards coalition building.
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DEDICATION

To Ben, with all my love.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There is a host of people without whom this project would have been
impossible. Thank you first to my chair Daniel Brouwer. Thank you for working
with me both at my most sluggish, and at my most feverish production. You
provided me with amazing feedback and encouragement. Thank you for
challenging me to be a scholar full of care and thoughtfulness in writing and
teaching. The passion and care you put into your lectures, your feedback, and
your relationship with students is inspiring. You are an exemplary mentor—I
have been so lucky to work with you.
I have also been very privileged to work with and take courses from
Cheree Carlson and Keith Miller. Cheree: Taking your classes were such joyful
experiences for me. You have an exceptional capacity for making otherwise
inaccessible content understandable, and have a great time doing it. Graduate
school was such an intimidating project as a first year, and taking your Rhetorical
Theory course helped me to understand my place in both graduate school and the
academy. Your exuberance and passion are unrivaled. Keith: Thank you for
always, always being supportive. I knew throughout the course of this endeavor
that no matter what news I had to report about the job application process you
would always respond with encouragement. You have made this process less
stressful through your support.
Finally, I must thank my family and friends for tolerating my moments of
frustration, and sharing in my moments of joy related to this project. I count
myself lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life. I could not have
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completed this project without the loving support of my wonderful partner Ben,
my mother Peggy, my sister Brooke, my dearest friends Nicole, Lydia, Karma,
Joseph, Erik, Michael, my family at Desert Vista high school, and so very many
more.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW ............................. 1
Social Movements ............................................................................ 12
Religion, Sexuality, and Civil Rights ............................................... 20
LGBT and Civil Rights Intersections ............................................... 31
Whiteness .......................................................................................... 38
Coalitional Politics ........................................................................... 46
Intersectionality ................................................................................ 50
Method .............................................................................................. 52
Texts .................................................................................................. 57
Conclusion ........................................................................................ 60
2 CRITICAL INTERSECTIONAL RHETORIC .................................. 62
Critical Rhetoric ................................................................................ 62
Intersectionality ................................................................................ 77
A Conversation ................................................................................. 91
3 IS GAY THE NEW BLACK? ........................................................... 103
Television Ads ................................................................................ 104
The Advocate .................................................................................. 124
Media Coverage .............................................................................. 136
Litigation ......................................................................................... 162
Conclusion ...................................................................................... 176
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4 ALTERNATIVE FRAMEWORKS AND CONCLUSIONS ........... 183
Limitations and Future Research .................................................... 215
REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 221
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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW
We are in the midst of a major social change. Societies seldom make such
changes smoothly. For some the process is frustratingly slow. For others
it is jarringly fast.
Justice Carol A. Corrigan, In re Marriages

The November 2008 edition of The Advocate asks the question, “Is gay
the new black?” Lamenting the passage of Proposition 8 in the state of
California, a measure that revoked the right of marriage to gay and lesbian
couples, the article simultaneously valorizes African Americans who opposed the
proposition while articulating a frustration with celebrating the election of the first
African-American president against the backdrop of anti-gay prejudice (Gross,
2008). This profound ambivalence was reflected in the blogosphere, some news
media, and much of the public discussion of the breakdown of the No on 8
campaign. The news of statistical majorities of both black and Latino voters
supporting Proposition 8 represented to many LGBT individuals a betrayal of a
sort of symbolic, unstated coalition between African Americans and gays in their
progressive support of Barack Obama.
Reactions to the success of Proposition 8 ranged from sheer anger to
patronizing insults that likened the LGBT movement to the civil rights movement
with the enthymematic question: “How could you?” This question became
explicit through blogs and television appearances that shamed the black voters
who supported Proposition 8. Dan Savage, who in the immediate aftermath of the
passage of Proposition 8 operated as a spokesperson for the LGBT activists on
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that campaign, appeared on CNN with both D. L. Hughley and Anderson Cooper.
While on screen with D. L. Hughley, Savage was careful to concede that while
the African American civil rights movement is historically different from the
LGBT civil rights movement, there is a central similarity: hate. He argued that if
you are fired from a job because you are gay or because you are black, you are
still fired. His equation assumes all hate manifests identically; the disparate
histories of racial minorities prove the materiality of his claim wrong. Savage
followed this up with an appearance with Anderson Cooper where he argued that
the 1963 Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision that overturned bans on anti-
miscegenation laws was “identical” to the question begged by the passage of
Proposition 8. This was not the first that the public heard of the Civil Rights
analogy; in fact, this rhetoric can be found throughout much of the “No on 8”
television spots during the campaign featuring pictures of “white only” drinking
fountains, interracial marriages, even Klan regalia.
For many, the possibilities to discuss with sophistication and depth the
divisions, both real and constructed, between African-American and GLBT
communities was welcomed. This possibility, though, was quashed when many
in the GLBT movement resisted any concessions. Savage, after his appearance on
CNN, posted to his blog:
I’m done pretending that the handful of racist gay white men out there—
and they’re out there, and I think they’re scum—are a bigger problem for
African Americans, gay and straight, than the huge numbers of
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homophobic African Americans are for gay Americans, whatever their
color.
Savage’s comments uniquely foreclose productive public discussions concerning
racism, homophobia, and those who experience the intersection of these
ideologies. His decision to construct African-American communities as more
homophobic than gay and lesbian communities are racist was largely in response
to reports of verbal aggression towards African-Americans at protests
immediately following the 2008 vote (Cannick 2008). Cannick reported narratives
from African-American activists enduring racial slurs and other verbal accosting
while attempting to support the marriage movement; including being called
“nigger” and “the niggers better not come to West Hollywood if they know what
is best for them,” “if your people want to call me a faggot, I will call you a
nigger,” (Cannick, 2008). She also relays this extended narrative
Three older men accosted my friend and shouted, "Black people did this, I
hope you people are happy!" A young lesbian couple with mohawks and
Obama buttons joined the shouting and said there were "very disappointed
with black people" and "how could we" after the Obama victory. This was
stupid for them to single us out because we were carrying those blue NO
ON PROP 8 signs! I pointed that out and the one of the older men said it
didn't matter because "most black people hated gays" and he was "wrong"
to think we had compassion. That was the most insulting thing I had ever
heard. I guess he never thought we were gay.
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