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TBA_C03.qxd 08/02/2007 11:20 AM Page 74 3 Gay rights, same-sex marriage and AIDS As the 2000 presidential election approached, George W. Bush’s gubernatorial record in Texas gave rise to mixed feelings among gay and lesbian campaigners. It seemed to have a contradictory character. At times, Bush and some of the other Republican governors appeared to be differentiating themselves from the Christian right by downplaying moral concerns and condemning the politics of ‘divisiveness’ (see pages 63– 4). In April 1999, Bush refused to join those Senate Republicans
This book considers the policy of the George W. Bush administration towards issues such as abortion, sex education, obscenity and same-sex marriage. It suggests that, although accounts have often emphasised the ties between George W. Bush and the Christian right, the administration's strategy was, at least until early 2005, largely directed towards the courting of middle-ground opinion. The study offers a detailed and comprehensive survey of policy making; assesses the political significance of moral concerns; evaluates the role of the Christian Right; and throws new light on George W. Bush's years in office and the character of his thinking.
and public state for many people. Same-sex marriage disrupts the gendering of marriage and so threatens the familiar social and economic order. However, the twenty-first century has witnessed a major increase in public support for marriage rights for same-sex couples, and this chapter will trace how an apparently isolated court case grew into a new social movement. The focal point of this chapter is the 2004 High Court case taken by Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan (the KAL case) for legal recognition of their marriage as a same-sex couple, which
sufficient to distinguish justified from unjustified claims for the recognition of difference. Same-sex marriage, cultural minorities, and the double requirement The problem is that not all disparities are per se unjust. Theorists of distributive justice have long appreciated this point with respect to economic inequalities. Seeking to distinguish just from unjust economic disparities, some of them have drawn the line between those inequalities that arise as a result of individuals’ choices, on the one hand, and those that arise as a result of circumstances beyond
represented Bush’s victory as a triumph for ‘base mobilization’. From this perspective, moral issues such as same-sex marriage acted as ‘mobilisers’ by encouraging turnout among white Protestant evangelicals, who if non-voters are disregarded, lean overwhelmingly to the Republicans.2 However, the ‘base mobilization’ thesis has to address poll findings suggesting that while there was an overall increase in turnout, the new voters do not appear to have been foot soldiers in the ranks of the religious right. Nationally, there was little difference in the frequency of church
had more than delivered for the UK leader. The second was that her impressive achievement became almost immediately eclipsed by May’s decision to achieve a ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), considering the votes of its ten MPs now crucial to the minority government’s survival. This eclipse was compounded by the Scottish party leader’s strong personal commitment to gay rights. She sought, and received, ‘categoric assurance’ that any arrangement with the DUP – which opposed same-sex marriage – would see ‘absolutely no
’s first televised mouth to mouth male–male kiss in 1989 ( Baden, 2018 ; Brown, 2015 ). The UNPF was able to increase condom use with a Tanzanian radio soap due to audience/character identification, and Mexican sociologists argue that having a popular telenovela depict a gay man finding social/family acceptance helped to legalise same-sex marriage ( Tate, 2014 ; Jensen, 2006 ). The UNPF’s soap formula introduces sensitive
Irish people participated in a constitutional referendum on two 147 ‘Belief shifts’ issues: the thirty-fourth amendment to the Constitution was about permitting same-sex marriage, while the thirty-fifth amendment suggested reducing the age of candidacy for the post of president of Ireland from thirty-five to twenty-one. Ireland had long been seen as a de-facto theocracy in which the Catholic Church held a hegemonic position. Issues of law, health and education have all been subject to strong levels of control, both implicit and explicit, by the Catholic
TBA_C06.qxd 08/02/2007 11:21 AM Page 176 6 ‘Healthy marriage’ and the family Although there were frequent references to the importance of marriage during the Bush years, these were almost always within the context of the same-sex marriage debate. Gay and lesbian marriage, it was said, threatened the integrity and survival of marriage as an institution. Affirmations of the importance of marriage were therefore, more often than not, coded calls for the prohibition of same-sex unions. There were, however, two exceptions. Firstly, there were efforts to address and
there was the emphasis on social liberalism, which was tested in government by Cameron’s commitment to same-sex marriage (Heppell, 2013a : 260–1). Did Cameron and the modernisers develop a consistent and sustained commitment with regard to these themes? Environmentalism Let us consider environmentalism first. A simplistic distinction could be drawn between opposition, and