Jun 27, 2008  |  By: CHRIS JOHNSON  | COMMENTS     

The same-sex marriage ceremonies that took place starting last week in California attracted widespread mainstream media attention, with newspapers and cable news shows carrying images of couples exchanging vows.

The images were sharply different from those broadcast in 2004, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began marrying gay couples. Back then, the weddings sometimes looked more like an impromptu protest than a dignified ceremony.

This time, however, the media feasted on images of celebrity and longtime activist couples in dignified settings, often featuring children.

This, of course, was no accident.

Public relations officials from gay advocacy groups across the United States banded together to cope with the media frenzy in California following the Supreme Court’s decision last month allowing same-sex marriage in the state.

Brad Luna, communications director for Human Rights Campaign, said the response from media outlets on the first day same-sex marriages were performed was overwhelming.

“I really have never seen anything like the tsunami of media interest that happened,” he said.
Luna said HRC dispatched its entire communications team and other staffers to help coordinate public affairs efforts in six California media markets.

Vaishalee Raja, the associate director of media field strategy for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), said her organization worked to connect the media to couples all across California, especially in the southern part of the state.

The media “turned a spotlight” on the personal stories and the relationships of the couples getting married, she said. The entertainment media was particularly interested in how George Takei, famed for his role as Hikaru Sulu in “Star Trek,” got a marriage license June 17 with his partner, Brad Altman, so they could wed in September.

But Bob Stern, the president of the Center for Governmental Studies, a Los Angeles-based think tank, said he heard reports that the public relations effort in California consisted of more than just helping reporters reach couples getting married.

Stern said couples involved in ceremonies were instructed to tone down their appearance to encourage favorable public opinion toward same-sex marriage.

“I know that they’ve had meetings in West Hollywood urging people to tone it down — sort of strategy sessions in terms of how these ceremonies should look,” he said.

Gay advocates told gay couples getting married not to cross dress or to have “excessive displays of affection,” Stern claimed.

With a state constitutional amendment on the California ballot this November that would ban same-sex marriage if enacted, gay advocates are trying to control the images “to appeal to moderates who are in the middle of the issue,” Stern said.

Luna said he did not know of any “strategy sessions” in West Hollywood and said HRC did not issue any guidance to couples on how to present themselves.

“You don’t really have to message people who are getting married because the marriage is about love and about joy and about commitment and that’s what they’re going to talk about anyway,” he said.

Dan Pinello, a gay City University of New York government professor, said the idea that gay groups are issuing instructions to couples is more “speculation than reality.”

Pinello said there might be a perception that gay couples marrying now in California are less on the fringe than those taking part in earlier same-sex weddings because circumstances are different.

Same-sex marriage was briefly available in 2004 in California under the guidance of Newsom. Those licenses were voided in August 2004 by the Supreme Court, which ruled that Newsom acted illegally in issuing them.

Newsom gave gay advocacy groups initially less than a day’s notice to prepare for his announcement that he would start issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, Pinello said. Only at the urging of certain groups did Newsom keep his decision quiet for about another week, Pinello said.

Additionally, there was a general belief, even within the gay community, that Newsom was acting illegally in issuing the licenses and that the judiciary would void them at the first opportunity, Pinello said.

“Everyone thought what Newsom did was legally questionable — there was no certainty that these marriage licenses would be valid in the final analysis,” he said.

Pinello argued that the kind of gay couples who would respond in these circumstances would be people who are not middle-class, people who are not concerned with legality issues and people who did not have to travel far.

“The very kinds of people who are flocking to City Hall in San Francisco in February 2004,” Pinello said, “are very different from who’s … going to clerk’s offices across the entire state of California after having more than a month’s notice of this ...