“The Union of One Man and One Woman”
A content analysis of Minnesota for Marriage’s website www.minnesotaformarriage.com
By
Tyler Anderson
&
Matthew Lambert
SOC 352 – Qualitative Methods
Dr. Vigilant
October 17, 2011
Introduction
On May 21, 2011, the Minnesota House of Representatives passed a measure which will allow
Minnesota voters to answer one of the most contentious questions in political discourse today:
Should gay people be allowed to marry? The vote, to be held on November 6, 2012, will decide
if the state of Minnesota will include an amendment to its constitution which enacts an official
ban on gay marriage. Understandably then, since the measure passed Minnesota has acquired a
national audience as advocates for both sides of the issue clamor to ensure vote swings their way
and make Minnesota an example for the rest of the country. In order to better understand the
viewpoint of advocates who wish to preserve the traditional definition of marriage, the
researchers will analyze the website of one such advocacy group – Minnesota for Marriage. In
doing so, our objective is to clearly articulate the arguments expressed on the website as
objectively as possible.
Research Objective
The objective of the content analysis of Minnesota for Marriage’s website is to better understand
the ways in which institutions use media to gain support for the cause of preserving traditional
marriage. In this analysis, the researchers hope to accurately relate the expectations, beliefs, and
arguments of Minnesota for Marriage as outlined on their webpage.
Methodology/Ethics
The solitary method used in this research will be content analysis of that which can be found on
Minnesota for Marriage’s webpage, www.minnesotaformarriage.com.
Because only content that was found on the site was analyzed there were no ethical concerns in
conducting this research.
Reflexivity Statement
The views of those conducting this research are opposite to the views expressed by Minnesota
for Marriage. Indeed, perhaps the primary reason we chose to analyze Minnesota for Marriage
was to examine the arguments of those whom with which we don’t agree. However, it is possible
that our own personal biases may skew the research, although every measure was taken to ensure
this happened as little as possible.
Terminology
This section will attempt to define and describe certain words and phrases the researchers use
throughout the content analysis that may be foreign to the reader. These words include:
Widget: An application, or a component of an interface, that enables a user to perform a function
or access a service.
Facebook: The name of a social-networking service and website, launched in 2004.
Twitter: An online social networking and micro blogging service that enables its users to send
and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".
Flickr: A popular photo sharing website that allows members to upload their own photos into
customizable albums that can then be labeled, organized, tagged, and publicly posted.
RSS feed: a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog
entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.
Results/Findings
Minnesota for Marriage is a relatively small site. Even so, much of the content is repeated on
multiple pages and under multiple subheadings. In this section, we will divide our findings into
seven sections to represent the various subheadings one might review on the website: About
Minnesota for Marriage, Entire Site, Home, Why Marriage Matters, The Threat to Marriage,
News, Spread the Word, Volunteer, and Contribute.
About Minnesota for Marriage
At the bottom of each page there is a link “learn more” which takes you to the “About Minnesota
for Marriage” section. This section tells about the leaders of Minnesota for Marriage explaining
that includes both religious and people outside the religious community who support the
Minnesota Marriage Amendment and asked the Legislature to place it on the ballot. There is a
bold heading towards the bottom of the page, “Who We Are.” It list three organizations
supporting the amendment, these organizations are Minnesota Family Council, Minnesota
Catholic Conference, and National Organization for Marriage. The last heading is, “Voting YES
for the Marriage Amendment does 2 simple things” which is also in bold. The two simple things
are: “Protects the definition of marriage to what Minnesota law has always been and what human
history has always understood marriage to be—the union of one man and one woman.” and
“Strengthens democracy and allows the people of Minnesota the opportunity to protect marriage
before it is redefined by judges or politicians.” There are two photographs on this page on the top
right it pictures a young possibly African-American couple, both of whom are smiling and look
very happy. The woman is wearing a white wedding dress, and the man is wearing a tuxedo. A
second photograph towards the bottom of the page is a white couple with their three young
children all which are smiling and again seem very happy. The message that we interpret from
this picture is that this family believes that it is important for children to have a “traditional
family” meaning they have both a father and a mother.
Entire Site:
In this section we will describe the visual and interactive media that are pervasive through each
subsection of the site. These include a banner along the top of the page with Minnesota for
Marriage’s logo to the left, complete with the slogan “One Man, One Woman.” In the center of
the banner is a picture of a smiling white family with two young children. To the right of the
banner is a link which a visitor can use to share Minnesota for Marriage content on Facebook or
sign up for email updates from the group.
Lastly, about 2/3 of each page on the website is occupied by a large blue window which, along
with allowing the visitor to sign up to volunteer or donate to Minnesota for Marriage, is
comprised of six widgets: 1) “Spread the Word” links the visitor to the Spread the Word
subsection and gives the visitor an option to send an email to contacts explaining Minnesota for
Marriage, 2) “House Party” gives the visitor information on how to organize a “House party for
Marriage” to help friends, family and acquaintances “better understand what’s at stake with the
Minnesota Marriage Amendment”, 3) “Connect to FB” directs users to the Minnesota for
Marriage Facebook page, 4) “Follow on Twitter” allows users to be privy to all of Minnesota for
Marriage’s “tweets”, 5) “Latest Flickr” directs the user to the group’s Flickr page where he or
she can view a number of photos of different Minnesota for Marriage events (see examples on
next page), and 6) “News Feed” allows users to include news stories that include Minnesota for
Marriage in their RSS feeds
Example 1 – Photos taken from Minnesota for Marriage’s Flickr account. All photos were taken during Minnesota
for Marriage’s attendance at the Minnesota State Fair and added on September 27, 2011
Home:
This subsection is the main page of the website – the page which users are first directed to when
accessing Marriage for Minnesota’s webpage. The page includes a photo of a smiling AfricanAmerican family with young children (combined with the picture in the banner mentioned above
there is a total of two photos of families). One observation was these pictures are multi-racial –
meaning that there is racial diversity between the photos – but not inter-racial – meaning that
there is racial diversity within the photos (see Example 2). This can be observed throughout the
site.
Also on the Home page are the top three news articles from the News subsection, as well as
another opportunity for the visitor to login to Facebook to share content from Minnesota for
Marriage. There is also a short paragraph introducing the issue entitled “Preserve a Vibrant
Marriage Culture” which describes the measure mentioned above being passed with bi-partisan
support and a “Learn More” button which links the user to the next subsection: Why Marriage
Matters.
Example 2- Photos taken from Minnesota for Marriage representing families.
Why Marriage Matters:
This section of the site includes a long explanation of Minnesota for Marriage’s position on the
Minnesota Marriage Amendment with 3 photos of families with young children incorporated
within the text – a white family playing football in a park, an Asian family laying in a field, and a
duplicate of the banner picture mentioned above – for a total of 4 family photos, all of which
include younger children between pre-school to elementary school aged.
The text of the page seemingly attempts to change the frame of what gay marriage would mean.
According to the argument, the issue is not whether or not both competing views of marriage
will exist but rather the displacement of a new definition of marriage. Here, Minnesota for
Marriage cites a “scholarly review published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy”
which states that
…once the judiciary or legislature adopts “the union of any two persons” as the
legal definition of civil marriage, that conception becomes the sole definitional
basis for the only law-sanctioned marriage that any couple can enter, whether
same-sex or man-woman. Therefore, legally sanctioning genderless marriage,
rather than peacefully coexisting with the contemporary men-woman
marriage institution, actually displaces and replaces it. (emphasis added)
The argument then moves to a secondary frame of the protection of children. According to
Minnesota for Marriage, passage of the Minnesota Marriage Amendment preserves the
traditional American family. Furthermore, the author of the article contends that marriage should
be exclusive to heterosexuals because children can only be produced by heterosexual sexual
relationships. The article continues by arguing that marriage is “vital” because it channels
“biological drive[s] and sexual passion[s] that might otherwise become destructive into enduring
family units.” The author explains:
By encouraging men and women to marry, society helps ensure that children will
be known by and cared for by their biological parents. Whenever a child is born,
her mother will almost always be nearby. But the same cannot always be said of
her father. Men, especially, are encouraged to take responsibility for their children
through the institution of marriage. Marriage is society’s mechanism of increasing
the likelihood that children will be born and raised by the two people responsible
for bringing them into the world – their mother and father.
Here, the argument seems to stray and focus mostly on emphasizing marriage as opposed to
single-parent households. However, the article describes that heterosexual marriage must be
preserved because children need not only two parents, but two parents of the same gender. The
author posits that children need the influence of both genders – mothers and fathers – for proper
development. According to the text, “No matter one’s view of homosexual ‘marriage,’ it is
undeniable that every child born into a same-sex relationship is intentionally denied the love and
affection of one of her biological parents.”1
The author sets up a third frame of selfish adults by saying that “[u]nder a genderless definition
of marriage, the interests of children – and therefore society’s intrinsic interest in marriage – is
eliminated entirely. Only the wishes of the two adults matter.” According to the author, gay
marriage advocates hope to shift the concern of the welfare of children to the welfare of adults.
The article also describes a myriad of ramifications for individuals whose morals prevent them
from recognizing the law should gay marriage be legalized. For instance, the author claims that
churches may have to choose between abandoning their moral principles or losing tax exempt
status, small businesses and individuals may be subject to lawsuits and regulatory action if they
refuse to condone same-sex marriage, and schools may be forced to teach a definition of
marriage that runs counter to what children learn in church or at home.
1
Here it should be noted that, throughout the site, anytime the potential consequences for children is explained, the
hypothetical child is described using female pronouns. This may be a tactic used to illicit a particular emotional
response or simply coincidence.
Lastly, the author declares that there are two issues at stake with the outcome of the Minnesota
Marriage Amendment: 1) How will marriage come to be legally defined, and 2) making sure the
people of Minnesota themselves decide how the state comes to this definition.
The Threat to Marriage
This section includes two more pictures (three total combined with the banner picture) of
families with young children – a white family camping and an African-American family reading
together. The section also consists of another article restating many of the arguments from the
previous section, including the threats to individuals, small businesses, and religious institutions,
as well as a restatement that “Marriage will be redefined for everyone” and that gay marriage
shifts focus from children to adults. Furthermore, the article warns that those whose moral beliefs
interfere with a definition of marriage that includes same-sex couples would be stigmatized as
racists and bigots.
The author continues by showcasing examples of where these claims have been realized, such as
religious groups in Boston and Washington, D.C. being “forced” to close their charitable
adoption agencies and wedding officials being fired for refusing to facilitate same-sex marriage
ceremonies. Furthermore, the article warns that:
Such a paradigm shift says to children that mothers and fathers don’t matter
(especially fathers) – any two “parents” will do. It proclaims the false notion that
a man can be a mother and woman can be a father – that men and women are
exactly the same in rearing children. And it undermines the marriage culture by
making marriage a meaningless political gesture, rather than a child-affirming
social construct.
Here, Minnesota for Marriage reaffirms the frame that same-sex marriage provides benefits for
adults at the expense of children. Lastly, the article mentions other latent functions of same-sex
marriage, such as fewer people choosing to marry, more children being born out of wedlock, an
increase in absentee fathers, an increase in female poverty, and an increase in “all the
documented social ills associated with children being raised in a home without their married
biological parents.” However, the article fails to mention exactly how or why these problems will
increase if homosexuals are allowed to marry.
News
This section provides the press releases regarding the Minnesota Marriage Amendment and
campaign activities. There are eleven different articles arranged by dates starting with the most
recent article on the top of the page. The first news article which was published on October 4,
2011 is the Minnesota for Marriage campaign full disclosure statement in regards to
contributions made to their organization. They say that they will disclose all donations received
in accordance with Minnesota state law even though they think it is wrong because the
Campaign Finance Board does not have the right to make nonprofit organizations to publicly
reveal its contributors and they also think that by doing this may mislead the public about who is
supporting their organization. The author of this article makes it clear that they feel like the
government is specifically targets their type of pro-family organizations. This article leads us to
believe that there is a reason they do not want people to know who supports this organization,
such as large contributors who may not want to publicly be known as supporting this type of
institution for fear that their views may affect its reputation.
Another article that stood out to us was an article that commends Archbishop Timothy Dolan for
writing a letter to President Obama urging him to defend the Defense of Marriage act. Also
included in this article is the actual letter to the President expressing the Archbishops strong
disappointment in the governments change in their position on the Defense of Marriage act. We
think the author is trying to make people feel disappointed and betrayed by their government
who is suppose to be acting in the best interests of the people. The article also conveys that a
majority of Americans believe that marriage is between one man and one woman stating voters
in 30 states have defined marriage in their state constitutions.
Spread the Word
When clicking on this tab the first thing that draws our attention is “HELP SPREAD THE
WORD!” written in large blue letters. This tab is encouraging supporters to help spread their
ideology by sending their friends and family messages asking them to support their campaign. It
gives two important facts about the Minnesota Marriage Amendment. The first fact listed about
the amendment, says it preserves the definition of marriage in Minnesota as being the union of
one man and one woman. Citing that 31 of 31 states have voted in favor of traditional marriage
and President Clinton also signed this into law. The second fact is that by passing this
amendment to the Minnesota constitution it will not allow law makers to change this policy in
the future. It encourages their supporters to use social networking tools such as Facebook and
Twitter to post their press releases and videos. This website also gives you an option to send a
personalized message that will be delivered to your friends via email and it also allows you to
enter in a multiple friends email addresses which will send them information about the
movement and a link to their website. By encouraging supporters to use these social media tools
they increase the amount of exposure to their movement.
Volunteer
This link gives an individual a chance to become active in the movement. It says, “To be
successful in passing the marriage amendment, we need the help of thousands of volunteers.”
This statement makes individuals feel more compelled to volunteer in this movement by giving
them purposive incentive, which is the sense of satisfaction having contributed to the attainment
of a worthwhile cause which in theory would reduce the number of free-riders. (Staggenborg
2011:32) It asks for an individual’s contact information if they wish to volunteer. It also gives
you the chance to add optional information about your religious affiliation which is a drop down
menu that covers a majority of the popular religions. A volunteer can also choose to include the
name and city their church is located in, which will allow the volunteer coordinator to connect
you with activities at your church. Below your personal information it asks in dark bold text,
“How can you help defend marriage?” A volunteer can check as many of the boxes as they wish
which are, “recruit volunteers, spread the word, host a house party, write letters to the editor,
make phone calls, knock on doors, attend a rally, being a zip code captain, being a church
captain, and putting up a yard sign.” Many of options seem very easy and require very little
effort but still bond them to the movement. Other options include prominent positions which
would more than likely require a lot of dedication. By asking volunteers how they can defend
marriage we believe that it makes the volunteers feel like they are strong key contributors the
movement.
Contribute
This section allows you to contribute to the movement. On the left side it asks for your name,
address, email address and phone number. On the right side you are able to enter in your credit
card information and select the amount you would like to donate. The increments you are
allowed to donate are in 10 dollar intervals going up to $1,000, and the site also gives you an
option to type in your own amount. Below the donation amount it gives you the option to check a
box, “Keep me informed.” Right above the submit button it notifies contributors that
contributions are non-tax deductible.
Conclusion
Minnesota for Marriage is instrumental in connecting the supporters of their movement as well
as winning over swing voters. It makes it obvious that it has connections to religious
organizations, but also reaches out to nonreligious supporters by stressing the importance for
them to help “defend marriage.” The organization believes the majority of the public supports
their side of the movement, as evidenced by its consistent use of “bi-partisan” as well as its
statement that 31 of 31 states have voted to define marriage as one man and one woman. It
conveys they importance of traditional family structure to protect children and society. The
website takes advantage of different social media websites and urges their supporters to spread
the word through the use of technology. Furthermore the Minnesota for Marriages website is
exceptionally easy to navigate which could be an indication of the targeted demographic - an
older, more conservative generation.
Citation
Staggenborg, Suzanne. Social Movements. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print.