Free The Battle Over Marriage: Gay Rights Activism Through the Media by Leigh Moscowitz

of bringing gay marriage into the realm of mainstream political debate and public discourse but nonetheless felt that avoiding the issue would hinder progress on a wide variety of LGBT issues.
    My own entry into this project naively assumed a proactive, organized
    effort on the part of gay rights activists to push same-sex marriage onto the public and media agendas. To some extent, some of the smaller single-issue groups that were organized specifically around marriage did actively seek to do battle on the marriage front. But it became almost instantaneously clear during the interview process that for most activists, especially those who were with the larger, multi-issue gay rights organizations, same-sex marriage was not a battle of choice, but one they were forced to contend with due to pressures from conservative right opponents—and fought begrudgingly in
    the arena of the mainstream media.
    Activists commonly referred to their position in the debate as “playing
    defense,” claiming that marriage “was not a battle of our choosing.” Evoking the metaphor of a skirmish that breaks out at a school playground, one informant described the gay movement as being the smal er, weaker kid who is perpetual y picked on and eventual y has to stand up for himself. As Roberta s
    explained, “When a bully kicks you in the teeth, and you don’t fight back, n
    they know they can kick you over and over and over again. So it’s critical for l
    the little guy to get up and do something and say, ‘you are not going to be LC
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    Fighting the “Battle to Be Boring”
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    able to do this to me! Even if my mouth is bleeding, you are not going to be able to kick me in the teeth again!’”
    Continuing the analogy of a stronger, tougher, more organized enemy
    bullying gay rights proponents, Chris of the Log Cabin Republicans argued,
    “They [social conservatives] talk about the gay agenda forcing this issue, when really, we were simply reacting to the right-wing agenda.” Similarly, Michael, communications director for the Human Rights Campaign, explained, “marriage interestingly enough came to prominence not because
    of our community but because of our opponents.”
    In his estimation, conservatives sensed defeat after the 2003 Lawrence v.
    Texas decision when the U.S. Supreme Court repealed anti-sodomy laws, seen as a landmark victory for the gay and lesbian rights movement. Fearing that Lawrence might pave the way for legalizing more rights for gay and lesbian citizens (including marriage), conservative groups in a retaliatory and preemptive move began to push state-by-state for constitutional amendments that would “shut the door on marriage equality as much as possible.”
    Conservative groups sensed they could use the gay marriage controversy for political gain, rally constituents around the issue, and fire up their core base.
    My activist informants did not necessarily credit conservative opponents with creating the issue, but argued that “they propelled this into the national spotlight in a way that was not our community’s doing” (Michael, Human
    Rights Campaign).
    Taken further, according to many activists, the gay marriage debate was a diabolical political strategy crafted by the Bush administration. Conservative strategists worked to construct gay people as the modern equivalent of
    “the boogie man,” as they have historically done, and to benefit politically by scapegoating an already disenfranchised group. This sentiment is reflected in the words of one informant who describes a conspiratorial strategy on the part of the Bush administration, painting a picture of White House staff sitting around a conference room conjuring up ways to win the next election.
    Karl Rove’s agenda was to say, look, I’ve got a president who’s going into his reelection cycle. He’s not all that strong. I’ve got a war that I can’t quite explain.
    I’ve got an