Freedom to Marry

Prop 8

In November of 2008, the state of California passed the Prop 8 proposed ballot. California now only recognizes marriages that are between a man and a woman. Our group, Homo Sapiens, chose to investigate this topic further because it is an important issue regarding equality among people. I would like to focus on another specific group called, Freedom to Marry. This gay rights group has created a daily blog in which they post events, articles, and also links to other gay rights groups. I want to look at how they frame their arguments against Prop 8 and show how they want their audiences to connect with their message. As we analyze Freedom to Marry, we can look at their overall persona. One will be able to see this through the group’s credibility, their values they want their audience to adopt and also how they refer to oppositional groups to make their point.

Because Freedom to Marry is an already established group they have made great efforts to connect and work with other organizations to end the ruling of Prop 8. Freedom to Marry not only wants to accomplish this goal in the state of California but also nationwide. This group establishes its ethos by referring to their four main principles that they uphold,“We are, Catalyst driving the national debate on the freedom to marry; Grassroots network of activists building support for marriage online and on the ground; Strategy and messaging center providing support to local, state, and national allies; and Funding engine helping to fuel the marriage movement nationwide.” Also when looking at this group’s blog one can tell that they are trying to reach out all over the country. Evidence shows this even within their last ten posts when they post not just about California but also Washington DC, Maryland, and Iowa. One can also see that this is credible group because when looking through other gay rights groups main websites they are referenced as a driving supporter of the movement.

One of the most important parts of this group is how they frame their arguments to the audience. When reading the first page of the blog within almost every post is the word equality, which is stressed time and time again. For example, the value is shown in one post that is a link to an article about Meghan McCain, who is a daughter of presidential republican candidate John McCain. Meghan spoke out as a voice for Freedom to Marry at George Washington University. The article written by Madeleine Morgenstern starts out by saying “Meghan McCain voiced her support for marriage equality in a speech at the Jack Morton Auditorium Thursday night, calling it “this generation’s civil rights movement” and urging like-minded “progressive Republicans” to start speaking out.” By posting this link, Freedom to Marry is showing its readers that this is a humanity issue and no matter what political view one takes he or she can still speak out about it. Meghan McCain is only one of the well-known individuals that have been referenced in their posts.

The last part of the persona that Freedom to Marry acknowledges is not involved with the group themselves or the audiences, but instead the third persona. The third persona is the other individuals or groups that Freedom to Marry posts about that for Prop 8 and who want to exclude same-sex marriages. Most of the third personas Freedom to Marry refer to are either religious leaders or lawmakers. For example there is a post about an article in the Washington Post that talks about Utah senator Bob Bennett and his attempt to block D.C. same-sex marriages. There are more examples if you look on their site, but this evidence shows that Freedom to Marry has a strong stance against the politicians and the churches that have chosen to reject a whole category of people.

Persona is certainly an important theory to understand the mindset of support groups like Freedom to Marry. These groups want to involve their readers and make an impact on them in hopes of encouraging people to reach out on issues such as the Marriage Equality movement. This is important to our group, Homo Sapiens because we want our readers to identify with our groups or blogs with a similar mindset as us.

FREEDOM TO MARRY

http://www.freedomtomarry.org/blog/