Intersectionality in California’s Same-Sex Marriage Battles: A Complex Proposition

Abstract

This article employs what the author calls “foundational” intersectional analysis to investigate the coalitional and rhetorical strategies mobilized by Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot initiative in California designed to eliminate the right of same-sex marriage. The author argues that foundational intersectionality is the only method that sufficiently contextualizes the historical legacies constructing the political institution of marriage and that this method must incorporate the factor of religion, because religion is central to the politics of “moral values.” The first part of the article differentiates foundational intersectionality from identity intersectionality as a framework. The author then sketches how marriage is a political institution constructed in the United States through the simultaneous interactions of gender, sexuality, race, and religion. The second part of the article applies the framework to an empirical analysis of four discursive strategies employed by pro— and anti—same-sex marriage forces in California in order to “link their fate,” or sense of political alliance, to other groups.

Intersectionality takes it to the streets: Mobilizing across diverse interests for the Women’s March

“…Our findings demonstrate that individuals can be mobilized to protest on the basis of issues that fall outside their narrow interests or specific social identities. In contrast to the extant research that focuses on how smaller-scale movements use intersectionality to mobilize and expand their constituencies ( 19 , 29 ), we find that members of these coalitions participated together in one large-scale protest event while still coalescing around a suite of intersectional interests that sometimes overlapped. In many ways, we believe that the large turnout at the Women’s March, which organizers and others see as an indicator of success, is the direct result of the effective mobilization of various individuals and organizational constituencies that were motivated by intersectional issues.…”

Measuring Religious Identification in the United States

“…Our approach maintains the independence of religious identifications and other social identities. Religious identifications intersect with other identities to shape social attitudes and behaviors (Sherkat ; Wadsworth ), and these identities also intersect to shape religiosity (Baker and Whitehead ; Edgell, Frost, and Stewart ; Koehrsen ). Intersectional research on religious identification is particularly important for understanding religion's role in “[shaping] symbolic boundaries and [providing] cultural tools,” and how these constructions are used to make sense of and justify inequities (Edgell :255).…”

A Case Study of State‐Level Policymakers’ Discursive Co‐Constructions of Welfare Drug Testing Policy and Gender, Race, and Class

“…More recently, intersectional scholars have integrated the concept of “co‐construction” to highlight that intersectional categories, especially gender and race, discursively “co‐constitute one another” (Essed ; Pyke and Johnson ; Wadsworth ). This idea is articulated in Essed's (:3) concept of gendered racism, which refers to “the allocation of resources along […] gendered forms of race and ethnic discrimination,” and “denotes the construction of gender differences within the same racial/ethnic group, […] wherein the members of the same racial/ethnic group (e.g., White men and White women) experience different expectations, ideologies, and norms based on their gender” (Barnum and Zajicek :112).…”

“…More recently, intersectional scholars have integrated the concept of "coconstruction" to highlight that intersectional categories, especially gender and race, discursively "co-constitute one another" (Essed 2001;Pyke and Johnson 2003;Wadsworth 2011). This idea is articulated in Essed's (2001:3) concept of gendered racism, which refers to "the allocation of resources along [.…”