Assignment 1: Hot Topics1: Part 2 Theory

Hello

Part B: The mass society theory asks the why’s and how’s of protests and social movements operate. The rational approach uses logic to explain how these movements come around. The cultural and emotional approaches use the appeal of cultural beliefs and the emotional appeal to obtain supporters.

The mass society theory asks the why’s and how’s of social movements according to The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts by Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper. The thing is that this can go to both sides of the issue. On one side, you have supporters who are trying to achieve equal status quo and the opposition is trying to keep the status quo as it is. Why are same sex couples looking for equal rights? How can we achieve equality? Why same sex couples looking for equal rights? How can we keep the status quo as is? But if you are looking at the mass society theory in the sense of mobilizing as many people through proper persuasion to your side, then it stands to reason that you would protest, educate the public, comment on news shows, talk to politicians, and many other kinds of activism to raise awareness. Both sides in this side are looking for persuading as many people to share their view point.

The cultural and emotional best explains why there are supporters of this cause. It is because if you are homosexual, you should have the same rights as heterosexuals. Supporters go under the emotional/ cultural approaches to appeal to the community and use emotion to pull others into believing their side. This is different from other social movements because in the past = marriage has never been an issue. Historically, marriage, especially in historical European and Asian countries, marriages have been arranged have been between men and women for the purposes of social bonds. That was their culture at the time. This differs from current America because we want relationships to be based on love and that is a powerful emotion. That is what America is seeking in romance in our culture. Supporters of gay marriage argue, “If you can marry and experience love with your partner of opposite sex, why can’t we?” Since same sex relations did become an issue since 1969 with the New York raids (see earlier), it has been in the spot light.

Opposition falls under the rational approach because usually they rationalize their opposition by saying marriage is only for straight couples or using something like religion to support their cause. To the opposition, typically use vague and selectable references of the bible such as “one shall not lay with a man as you would a woman”. Just like any other opposition to civil rights movements they try to keep the status quo as it is. Furthermore, they try to use science to say that gay marriage is a slippery slope to other bad sexual acts such as polygamy, pedophilia, sexual attraction to animals, and so on. This kind of rationalization is just an excuse for this kind of bigotry to continue in this subject.

I hope you enjoyed,

Steven Weingarten

Book and news print references:

The Associated Press. "A Timeline of Events Involving Gay Marriage in Massachusetts." The Associated Press State & Local Wire June 14 2007.

Goodwin, Jeff and Jasper, James M. “The Social Movements reader: Cases and Concepts. Wiley-Blackwell. 2009.