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Abstract
This essay charts a critical intersectional rhetoric as a means for understanding the articulation of a Civil Rights Movement (CRM) analogy in marriage equality campaigns. Analyzing the campaign against Proposition 8, California's version of the Defense of Marriage Act, I argue that the use of such analogizing elides difference, prevents meaningful and complex conversations about power and oppression, and makes visible the material intersectional tensions between and among communities of color and gay and lesbian communities and how these discourses further marginalize those that identify as queer people of color. Through criticism of campaign commercials, movement strategy, and the protest rhetoric after the proposition passed, I argue that CRM analogy discourse historicizes racism, privileges white gay identities, and exacerbates divisions that prevent coalition building.
The author would like to thank Kent Ono, D. Robert Dechaine, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and feedback. I also wish to thank Daniel Brouwer, Cheree Carlson, and Keith Miller.
The author would like to thank Kent Ono, D. Robert Dechaine, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and feedback. I also wish to thank Daniel Brouwer, Cheree Carlson, and Keith Miller.
Notes
[1] Michael J. Gross, “Gay Is the New Black?” The Advocate, November 6, 2008, http://www.advocate.com/news/2008/11/16/gay-new-black?page=full.
[2] “Exit Poll Shows Blacks, Hispanics Overwhelmingly Backed Prop. 8,” KTVU, November 5, 2008 (accessed February 10, 2011).
[3] Dan Savage, interviewed by D.L. Hughley, D. L. Hughley Breaks the News, CNN, November 18, 2008; Dan Savage, interviewed by Anderson Cooper, AC360, CNN, November 18, 2008.
[4] Dan Savage, “Black Homophobia,” The Stranger: SLOG, November 5, 2008, http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/11/black_homophobia.
[5] Barack Obama, interviewed by Robin Roberts, Good Morning America, ABC, May 9, 2012.; Hollingsworth v. Perry, 133 S. Ct. 2652 (2013); United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013).
[6] Working with labels is itself an intersectional concern and not without consequence. For the purposes of this document, and with a clear sense that even while we might momentarily pin them down they cannot be static, I use the term “gay and lesbian” to signal the organization of the No on 8 Campaign for two reasons: first, it is true that the primary organizers of the campaign were predominately white gay and lesbian men and women, and second, in observation of larger queer critiques of marriage equality as a movement priority for a restricted proportion of the traditional LGBTQI acronym (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer identified). This document, in part, charts the limited investments of the mainstream, primarily gay and lesbian movement for marriage equality, so to use a more expansive acronym would be to engage in the same erasure of material interest. I do, however, use the acronym LGBTQI when widening the scope of my arguments for conversations outside of marriage equality. For more on queer critiques of marriage, see: Kate Berstein, “Open Letter to LGBT Leaders Who Are Pushing for Marriage Equality,” in Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage, ed. Ryan Conrad (Lewiston, ME: Against Equality Press, 2010). For more on the difficulty of acronyms, see: Surya Monro, Gender Politics: Activism, Citizenship and Sexual Diversity (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2005); and Yevette Taylor, Sally Hines and Mark E. Casey, eds., Theorizing Intersectionality and Sexuality (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
[7] Cameron Shelley, Multiple Analogies in Science and Philosophy (Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins North America, 2003), 142.
[8] Cameron Shelley, Multiple Analogies in Science and Philosophy (Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins North America, 2003), 142.
[9] Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London, UK: Verso Books, 2001).
[10] Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London, UK: Verso Books, 2001), 127.
[11] Siobhan Sommerville, Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000).
[12] Siobhan Sommerville, Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), 24.
[13] Siobhan Sommerville, Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), 37.
[14] Siobhan Sommerville, Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), 37.
[15] Diane Finnerty, “An Open Letter to My White Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Sisters and Brothers,” October 13, 2004, http://www.ywca.org/atf/cf/%7BAC4038C4-BCCA-4F24-B55C-F41063EDF6FE%7D/An%20Open%20Letter%20.pdf.
[16] Jane Schacter, “The Gay Civil Rights Debate in the States: Decoding the Discourse of Equivalents,” Harvard Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review 29 (1994): 283–317.
[17] Jane Schacter, “The Gay Civil Rights Debate in the States: Decoding the Discourse of Equivalents,” Harvard Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review 29 (1994): 283–317.
[18] Jane Schacter, “The Gay Civil Rights Debate in the States: Decoding the Discourse of Equivalents,” Harvard Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review 29 (1994): 283–317.
[19] Devon Carbado, “Black Rights, Gay Rights, Civil Rights,” UCLA Law Review 47 (1999–2000) 1467–1519; Devon Carbado, Black Men on Race, Gender and Sexuality: A Critical Reader (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1999), 296.
[20] Devon Carbado, “Black Rights, Gay Rights, Civil Rights,” UCLA Law Review 47 (1999–2000) 1467–1519; Devon Carbado, Black Men on Race, Gender and Sexuality: A Critical Reader (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1999), 296.
[21] Devon Carbado, “Black Rights, Gay Rights, Civil Rights,” UCLA Law Review 47 (1999–2000) 1467–1519; Devon Carbado, Black Men on Race, Gender and Sexuality: A Critical Reader (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1999), 296.
[22] Devon Carbado, “Black Rights, Gay Rights, Civil Rights,” UCLA Law Review 47 (1999–2000) 1467–1519; Devon Carbado, Black Men on Race, Gender and Sexuality: A Critical Reader (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1999), 296.
[23] Darren Lenard Hutchinson, “Discrimination and Inequality Issues “Gay Rights” For “Gay Whites”? Race, Sexual Identity, and Equal Protection Discourse,” Cornell Law Review 85 (2000): 1358–1391.
[24] Catherine Smith, “Queer as Black Folk?” Wisconsin Law Review (2007): 392.
[25] Mary Ziegler, “The Terms of Debate: Litigation, Argumentative Strategies and Coalitions in the Same-Sex Marriage Struggle,” Florida State University Law Review 39 (2012): 467–510.
[26] Mary Ziegler, “The Terms of Debate: Litigation, Argumentative Strategies and Coalitions in the Same-Sex Marriage Struggle,” Florida State University Law Review 39 (2012): 467–510.
[27] Raymie E. McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric: Theory and Praxis,” Communication Monographs 56 (1989): 91–111.
[28] Kent Ono and John Sloop, “Commitment to Telos: A Sustained Critical Rhetoric,” Communication Monographs 59, issue 2 (1992): 48–60.
[29] Kent Ono and John Sloop, “Commitment to Telos: A Sustained Critical Rhetoric,” Communication Monographs 59, issue 2 (1992): 48–60.
[30] McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric,” 91.
[31] McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric,”, 92.
[32] McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric,”, 92.
[33] McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric,”, 93–95.
[34] McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric,”, 93–95.
[35] McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric,”, 96.
[36] McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric,”, 96.
[37] McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric,”, 96.
[38] Michele Tracy Berger and Kathleen Guidroz, The Intersectional Approach: Transforming the Academy through Race, Class, & Gender (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2010).
[39] Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43, issue 6 (1991): 1241–1299.
[40] Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum (1989), 139.
[41] Patricia Hill Collins, Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1998); Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and New Racism (Hove, UK: Psychology Press, 2004).
[42] Patricia Hill Collins, Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1998); Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and New Racism (Hove, UK: Psychology Press, 2004).
[43] Patricia Hill Collins, Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1998); Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and New Racism (Hove, UK: Psychology Press, 2004), 205.
[44] Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000).
[45] Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000).
[46] McKerrow, “Critical Rhetoric.”
[47] Kent A. Ono and John M. Sloop, “The Critique of Vernacular Discourse,” Communication Monographs 62, issue 2 (1995): 19–46.
[48] Dana L. Cloud, “The Materiality of Discourse as Oxymoron: A Challenge to Critical Rhetoric,” Western Journal of Communication 58, issue 3 (1994): 141–63.
[49] Leslie McCall, “The Complexity of Intersectionality,” Signs 30, issue 3 (2005): 1771–1800.
[50] Linda Martín Alcoff, Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996).
[51] Jim A. Kuypers, “Doxa and a Critical Rhetoric: Accounting for the Rhetorical Agent Through Prudence,” Communication Quarterly 44, issue 4 (1996): 452–62.
[52] Collins, Black Feminist Thought.
[53] Kerry Eleveld, “Patrick Guerriero Lays Out No on 8 ‘Path to Victory,’” The Advocate, October 15, 2008, http://www.advocate.com/politics/prop-8/2008/10/15/patrick-guerriero-lays-out-no-8-path-victory.
[54] Kerry Eleveld, “The Gay Goodfellas,” The Advocate, June 18, 2008, http://www.advocate.com/news/2008/06/21/gay-goodfellas.
[55] “Discrimination,” produced by No on Prop 8, October 30, 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj-0xMrsyxE.
[56] “Discrimination,” produced by No on Prop 8, October 30, 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj-0xMrsyxE..
[57] Ali Bay and Julia Spiese, “New No on Prop 8 Ad Calls Upon Californians to Reject Discrimination,” Reuters, October 30, 2008.
[58] “Divisive,” produced by No on Prop 8, November 1, 2008, http://youtu.be/_eMXdliDGXs.
[59] Michael D. Shear, “President Obama’s Beliefs Meet His Policy,” The Washington Post, August 5, 2010.
[60] See, for example, Ros Wynne-Jones, “A black US President Was My Father’s Dream,” The Mirror, April 2, 2008; Jason Hoppin, “For Civil Rights Pioneers, the Moment Arrives at Last,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, November 4, 2008; James Royson, “King’s Dream Nears Reality in Cradle of Civil Rights,” The Toronto Star, November 3, 2008, A01.
[61] Patrick Range McDonald, “Dirty Laundry Over Prop. 8,” LA Weekly, November 12, 2008.
[62] Marriage Equality USA, “We Will Never Go Back: Grassroots Input on California’s No on 8 Proposition 8 Campaign; A Compilation of Findings from Community Forums and On-Line Survey,” January 2009.
[63] Silvio Horta and Fernando Gaitan, Ugly Betty, American Broadcasting Company (2006–2010).
[64] Christopher Goodwin, “Latino TV Station Tops US Ratings,” The Guardian, January 17, 2009; Meg James, “Univision no. 1 in L.A. ratings,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2010, D3.
[65] “Ferrera, Plana & Ortiz Speak Against Prop 8,” produced by No on Prop 8, October 25, 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMQf0kumpZQ&feature=share&list=PL3AB4E3C53D24AEFC&index=6.
[66] David Fleischer, “What Defeat in California Can Teach Us About Winning Future Ballot Measures on Same-Sex Marriage,” The Prop 8 Report, http://prop8report.LGBTmentoring.org/home.
[67] “Ferrera, Plana & Ortiz.”
[68] Wayne Besen, “Anything but Straight: Frank Talk on Race and Prop 8,” Falls Church News Press Online, http://www.fcnp.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=17:ntional%20commentary&id=3737:anything-but-straight-frank-talk-on-race-and-prop8.
[69] Wayne Besen, “Anything but Straight: Frank Talk on Race and Prop 8,” Falls Church News Press Online, http://www.fcnp.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=17:ntional%20commentary&id=3737:anything-but-straight-frank-talk-on-race-and-prop8..
[70] Mary Bernstein, “Identities and Politics: Toward a Historical Understanding of the Lesbian and Gay Movement,” Social Science History 26 (2002): 531–81.
[71] Mary Bernstein, “Identities and Politics: Toward a Historical Understanding of the Lesbian and Gay Movement,” Social Science History 26 (2002): 531–81.
[72] Leigh Moscowitz, The Battle Over Marriage: Gay Rights Activism Through the Media (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2013).
[73] “About Us,” Jordan/Rustin Coalition, http://jrcla.org/about-2/.
[74] “Our Story,” Honor PAC, http://www.honorpac.org/our-mission/; Patrick Range McDonald, “Dirty Laundry Over Prop. 8,” LA Weekly, November 12, 2008.
[75] Jesse McKinley, “Same-Sex Marriage Ban is Tied to Obama Factor,” The New York Times, September 21, 2008.
[76] Jamyn Cannick and Wayne Besen, interview by Wolf Blitzer, The Situation Room, CNN, November 9, 2008.
[77] Jamyn Cannick and Wayne Besen, interview by Wolf Blitzer, The Situation Room, CNN, November 9, 2008.
[78] Anthony B. Pinn, The Black Church in the Post-Civil Rights Era (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002).
[79] E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Church in America (New York, NY: Schocken Books, 1974).
[80] Kelly Brown Douglas, Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), 66.
[81] Allison Calhoun-Brown, “Upon This Rock: The Black Church, Nonviolence, and the Civil Rights Movement,” PS: Political Science & Politics 33, issue 2 (2000): 171–72.
[82] Bayard Rustin, “Brother to Brother: An Interview with Joseph Beam,” in Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin, ed. Devon W. Carbado and Donald Weise (San Francisco, CA: Cleis Press, 2003), 277–80, 292–94.
[83] Thadeaus Russell, “The Color of Discipline: Civil Rights and Black Sexuality,” American Quarterly 60, issue 1 (2008): 120.
[84] Thadeaus Russell, “The Color of Discipline: Civil Rights and Black Sexuality,” American Quarterly 60, issue 1 (2008): 120.
[85] Rustin, “Brother to Brother,” 276–77.
[86 Jasmyn A. Cannick, “No-on-8's White Bias: The Right to Marry Does Nothing to Address the Problems Faced by Both Black Gays and Black Straights,” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 2008.
[87] “Why Black Voters Didn’t Fight Prop. 8,” National Public Radio, November 10, 2008.
[88] Victoria Kim and Jara Abdulrahim, “Uproar Continues Over Palin Effigy,” Los Angeles Times, October 28, 2008.
[89] Dan Whitcomb, “Sarah Palin Effigy Hung in Halloween Display,” Reuters, October 27, 2008.
[90] Lisa Duggan, The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy (Ypsilanti, MI: Beacon Press, 2004). Noam Chomsky and Robert W. McChesney, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order (New York, NY: Seven Stories Press, 2011).
[91] Eleveld, “Gay Good Fellas.”
[92] Pam Spaulding, “The N-bomb is Dropped on Black Passerby at Prop 8 Protests,” The Huffungton Post, November 10, 2008; Rod McCullom, “N-Word Hurled at Blacks During Westwood Prop 8 Protest,” Rod 2.0 Blogs, November 7, 2008, http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/2008/11/n-word-and-raci.html.
[93] Pam Spaulding, “The N-bomb is Dropped on Black Passerby at Prop 8 Protests,” The Huffungton Post, November 10, 2008; Rod McCullom, “N-Word Hurled at Blacks During Westwood Prop 8 Protest,” Rod 2.0 Blogs, November 7, 2008, http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/2008/11/n-word-and-raci.html.
[94] Pam Spaulding, “The N-bomb is Dropped on Black Passerby at Prop 8 Protests,” The Huffungton Post, November 10, 2008; Rod McCullom, “N-Word Hurled at Blacks During Westwood Prop 8 Protest,” Rod 2.0 Blogs, November 7, 2008, http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/2008/11/n-word-and-raci.html.
[95] Dreama G. Moon and Thomas Nakayama, “Stategic Social Identities and Judgments: A Murder in Appalachia,” The Howard Journal of Communication 16 (2005): 87–107.
[96] Stone, Gay Rights at the Ballot Box.
[97] Sharon Sullivan, “On the Need for a New Ethos of White Antiracism,” philoSOPHIA 2 (2012) 21–38.
[98] Sharon Sullivan, “On the Need for a New Ethos of White Antiracism,” philoSOPHIA 2 (2012), 25.
[99] Adrienne Rich, “Disloyal to Civilization: Feminism, Racism, Gynephobia,” in On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966–1978 (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1979), 299.
[100] Juan F. Perea, “The Black/ White Binary Paradigm of Race: The Normal Science of American Racial Thought,” California Law Review 85, issue 5 (1997): 1213–58.
[101] Linda Alcoff, Visible Identities: Race Gender, and the Self (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006).
[102] “Hate Crime Statistics, 2012,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, November 25, 2013, http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2012-hate-crime-statistics.
[103] Nathan Sandholtz, Lynn Langton and Michael Planty, “Hate Crime Victimization, 2003–2011,” US Department of Justice, March 21, 2013, http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4614.
[104] Mark Potok, “Special Issue: A Year in Hate and Extremism,” Intelligence Report 149 (Spring, 2014).
[105] Mark Potok, “Special Issue: A Year in Hate and Extremism,” Intelligence Report 149 (Spring, 2014).
[106] Celeste Michelle Condit, “Democracy and Civil Rights: The Universalizing Influence of Public Argumentation,” Communication Monographs 54 (1987): 9–16.
[107] Gross, “Is Gay the New Black?”