The Political Economy of LGBT Rights

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott N. Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Policy Change ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
The World ◽  
Lgbt Politics ◽  
Lgbt Community ◽  
Gay Rights Movement ◽  
Developed World

Equal treatment for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community has improved at a rapid pace around the world since the gay rights movement first rose up to become a salient global force for change. With important regional exceptions, laws criminalizing same-sex sexual relations have not only come down in multiple countries, but same-sex couples can now also construct families in many advanced industrialized countries. Public acceptance of homosexuality, even in some non-Western countries, has increased dramatically. Yet, within those general trends hides the remarkable unevenness in the spread and adoption of policies fostering legal, social, and economic equality for LGBTQ communities around the world. Policy change toward more equal treatment for sexual minorities is concentrated in the developed world and within the cisgender gay and lesbian communities in particular. The existing literature in policy change shows the importance of transnational activists, changing international norms, and increasing levels of secularization have made this possible. But the effectiveness of these factors rests on an underlying foundation of socioeconomic factors based on economic and social development that characterizes advanced industrialized states. There is an uneven distribution of resources and interests among pro and anti-LGBT activist groups alike, and the differing levels of economic development in which they operate that explains the decidedly uneven nature of how LGBTQ human rights have advanced in the past 50 years. In addition, new political parties and activist organizations have emerged to lead the backlash against LGBTQ rights, showing progress is neither inevitable nor linear. In addition, serious gaps in what we know about LGBT politics remain because of the overwhelming scholarly focus on advanced industrialized states and policies that benefit the cisgender, gay and lesbian middle class in primarily Western societies. The study of LGBT politics in non-Western and developing countries is woefully neglected, for reasons attributed to the nature of the research community and the subject area. In the developed world, greater attention is needed to inequality within the LGBTQ community and issues beyond same-sex marriage. Finally, issues of intersectionality and how different groups within the LGBT community have enjoyed most of the benefits of the gay rights movement since its takeoff more than 50 years ago.

Gay Marriage in an Era of Media Visibility

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Moscowitz
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gay Marriage ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Gay Rights Movement

This book examines how media coverage helped to define and shape the gay marriage debate as well as gay rights activism during the period 2003–2012. Through an analysis of media reports and in-depth interviews with leaders of the modern gay rights movement, it investigates how media frames and activist discourses evolved surrounding the issue of same-sex marriage. It looks at the aims and challenges of leading gay rights activists who sought to harness the power of mainstream news media to advocate for their cause and reform images of their community. It also considers how gay and lesbian rights groups attempted to shape coverage of the same-sex marriage debate, and what images and narratives about gay and lesbian life activists foregrounded. Finally, it discusses ways in which media attention surrounding the gay-marriage issue reshaped the structure, organization, and goals of the contemporary gay rights movement. This introduction provides an overview of the legal and political contexts of gay marriage in the United States, the rise of gay-themed media, and the research approach and plan of the book.

Direct Democracy and LGBT Politics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Lgbt Rights ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ballot Measures ◽  
Lgbt Politics ◽  
Lgbt Community

While many landmark policies affecting LGBT rights have been determined by legislatures and courts, voters have also often played a more direct role in LGBT politics through direct democracy institutions, such as the initiative and referendum. For example, in 2008 California voters approved Proposition 8, barring same-sex marriage in the state and setting the stage for a key federal court decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry (2013). This followed on the heels of 31 ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage in the previous decade. Direct democracy has also been employed frequently to consider a range of other important issues relevant to the LGBT community, including bans on same-sex couple adoptions, nondiscrimination policies, education policies, and employment benefits. Further, as issues addressing transgender right have emerged on the political landscape, local referendums have addressed public accommodation discrimination, including so-called “bathroom bills,” like the high-profile Houston referendum in 2014. Most of these prominent direct democracy contests have resulted in negative outcomes for the LGBT community, spurring concerns about subjecting the rights of marginalized groups to a popular vote. However, some ballot measures, such as Washington’s 2012 vote to legalize same-sex marriage, have expanded or protected LGBT rights. Yet the effects of direct democracy institutions extend beyond the direct policy outcomes of elections and have been shown to shape the decision-making of elected officials as well. Still, studies of both the direct and indirect effects of direct democracy on LGBT rights reveal mixed results that are contingent upon public attitudes and how the issues are framed. When the public is supportive of LGBT rights and views them through a civil right frame, direct democracy has been used to expand and protect these rights. However, when the public views the LGBT community more negatively and views the issues through a morality or safety lens, LGBT rights are put at risk by direct democracy. As such, direct democracy institutions function as a double-edged sword for the LGBT community, simultaneously offering an opportunity to elevate LGBT rights issues onto the public agenda with a civil rights frame and posing a threat to the community when these issues are viewed in a more hostile manner.

Policy Change and Public Opinion: Measuring Shifting Political Sentiment With Social Media Data

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 612-621
Author(s):  
Nicholas Joseph Adams-Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Media Data

This article uses Twitter data and machine-learning methods to analyze the causal impact of the Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage at the federal level in the United States on political sentiment and discourse toward gay rights. In relying on social media text data, this project constructs a large data set of expressed political opinions in the short time frame before and after the Obergefell v. Hodges decision. Due to the variation in state laws regarding the legality of same-sex marriage prior to the Supreme Court’s decision, I use a difference-in-difference estimator to show that, in those states where the Court’s ruling produced a policy change, there was relatively more negative movement in public opinion toward same-sex marriage and gay rights issues as compared with other states. This confirms previous studies that show Supreme Court decisions polarize public opinion in the short term, extends previous results by demonstrating opinion becomes relatively more negative in states where policy is overturned, and demonstrates how to use social media data to engage in causal analyses.

scholarly journals Americanism, Un-Americanism, and the Gay Rights Movement

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 1109-1130 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIMON HALL
Keyword(s):  
Gay Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gay Marriage ◽  
American Political Culture ◽  
Mccarthy Era ◽  
Don't Ask Don't Tell ◽  
Lgbt Community ◽  
Gay Rights Movement ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Symbolic Approach

The issue of “un-Americanism” was present at the creation of the gay rights movement. Indeed the movement emerged, at least in part, as a response to wide-ranging discriminatory policies and practices that were implemented by the federal government during the Cold War. Faced with claims that they constituted an existential threat to the United States, activists in the early gay rights movement worked hard to affirm their patriotism and appealed frequently to the nation's founding ideals of liberty and equality. At times, they also characterized those who discriminated against them as “un-American.” Fifty years later, debates about “Americanism” and “un-Americanism” have been centre stage in the battle to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell and to secure gay marriage rights. With conservative politicians, commentators and activists claiming that demands for gay marriage threaten the foundation of American civilization, the gay rights movement and its supporters have responded in kind. The increased willingness of gay rights activists to lay the charge of “un-American” is, at one level, a logical extension of the appeal to Americanism that has long been central to the movement's rhetorical and symbolic approach. But it also reflects both the greater empowerment of today's LGBT community compared with their McCarthy-era predecessors and the divisiveness of contemporary American political culture.

scholarly journals Religion, contact and ambivalent attitudes towards the rights of gays and lesbians in Barbados

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahalia Jackman
Keyword(s):  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Caribbean Island ◽  
Interpersonal Contact ◽  
The World ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
English Speaking

Over 70 countries in the world currently carry anti-gay laws, among which is Barbados, a small English-speaking Caribbean island. This study evaluates whether heterosexuals in Barbados are consistent or ambivalent in their attitudes toward anti-gay law reform and the extent to which competing messages from interpersonal contact and religion affect ambivalence. The analysis revealed that a majority of heterosexuals hold ambivalent attitudes about gay and lesbian rights. Moreover, results from a multinomial logistic regression imply that Barbadians whose views on sexuality were theologically based were less likely to support restrictions on same-sex intimacy when they have a close relationship with a gay man or lesbian. However, this decline in support for the laws brought about by meaningful contact did not translate to support for gay and lesbian rights among the religiously inclined. Rather, it manifested itself as a state of attitudinal ambivalence.

Authenticity, Respectability, and the Desire for Marriage

2021 ◽  
pp. 209-216
Author(s):  
Michael J. Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
Marriage Equality ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Couples ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Domestic Partnership ◽  
Gay Rights Movement

With marriage equality victorious, chapter 15 delves into the question of why so many on the political Left, in the gay rights movement and in academia, failed to appreciate how practical and radical marriage equality would be. Many social movement scholars and gay rights activists had claimed that same-sex couples did not really want to marry. Yet once same-sex couples had the option to marry, they voted with their feet and their hearts to get married by the hundreds of thousands. California same-sex couples chose marriage over domestic partnership by a 20-to-1 margin once they had the choice. Some critics from the Left had argued that marriage equality was not radical enough. The success of marriage equality suggests that there may be nothing as radical as a social change that is also practical and rooted in tradition.

scholarly journals The trouble with tongzhi

Pragmatics ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew D. Wong
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Sexual Minorities ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Internal Resistance ◽  
Political Efficacy ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Communist China ◽  
History Of

A general address term in Communist China, tongzhi ‘comrade’ was appropriated by gay rights activists in Hong Kong to refer to members of sexual minorities. Examining its level of acceptance among non-activist gay and lesbian Hongkongers, this article argues that non-activists’ ideology about sexuality accounts for their rejection of tongzhi and their preference for strategies that leave same-sex desire unspecified. This study demonstrates how the discursive history of a label can both enable and impede its political efficacy. It also sheds light on the internal resistance that representatives of minority groups encounter when introducing new labels for those they supposedly speak for.

scholarly journals Between Distancing and Interdependence: The Conflict of Solidarities in the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 073112142110054
Author(s):  
Mauro Basaure ◽  
Alfredo Joignant ◽  
Aldo Mascareño
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
Natural Conditions ◽  
The World ◽  
Mechanical Solidarity

In a bid to contain the spread of COVID-19, different national states around the world have introduced strict measures to regulate social interaction that have affected the interdependence of modern societies. In this article, we argue that this handling of the pandemic produces a conflict of solidarities that can be interpreted by expanding Durkheim’s classic formulations (organic and mechanical solidarity) to include the distinction between fragmentary solidarity (based on distancing) and ordinary solidarity (based on empathy and equal treatment). The conflict is triggered precisely by the introduction of fragmentary solidarity. Through this conceptualization, we identify different paradoxes and problems that the pandemic poses for present-day society and analyze how it attempts to overcome them through a generalization of ordinary solidarity. The paper concludes that the conflict of solidarities that characterizes the pandemic is not a passing phenomenon. Its anchorage in the complexity and interdependence of contemporary technological, social, and natural conditions points to its persistence.

scholarly journals MOOCS As A Method Of Distance Education In The Arab World – A Review Paper

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raniah Samir Adham ◽  
Karsten Oster Lundqvist
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Review Paper ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Massive Open Online Courses ◽  
Massive Open Online ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Developed World

Abstract Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the Arab World are still in their infancy. Many Arab countries are now starting to launch their MOOC platforms; however, there are only a few who have actually implemented such systems. This paper will explore online learning, in particular the rise of MOOCs around the world and their impact on the Arab World. The purpose of this paper is to give a true picture of the development of the first MOOC platforms in the Arab World. It will analyse in detail the concept, definitions, background, and types of MOOCs (xMOOCs and cMOOCs), as well as the main MOOCs platform in the Western and Arab worlds, and a timeline of the development of MOOCs. It will then observe the status of MOOCs in the developed world, opportunities in the Middle East, and the influence of Western MOOCs on the Arab world, from many perspectives, e.g. educational, religious, cultural and social.

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