“Defenders of perversion”: Professing Same-Sex Marriage Rights in the Local Press
This case study provides an important socio-historical snapshot of the same-sex marriage debate in a small city in central Alberta between December 2004 and August 2005. We explore the relationship between professors and small-town newspapers in fostering democratic dialogues on key social issues t...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University of Saskatchewan
2022-12-01
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| Series: | Engaged Scholar Journal |
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| Online Access: | https://esj.usask.ca/index.php/esj/article/view/70358 |
| Summary: | This case study provides an important socio-historical snapshot of the same-sex marriage debate in a small city in central Alberta between December 2004 and August 2005. We explore the relationship between professors and small-town newspapers in fostering democratic dialogues on key social issues through an analysis of faculty columns and the responding Letters to the Editor in a local paper. In so doing, this research focuses on two social groups located in a particular social environment, each representing a particular frame: the professors working in the local university who maintained an op-ed column in the local paper and supported a equality frame; and the general public living in Camrose and the surrounding rural area who supported a morality frame. This article contributes to our understanding of scholarly engagement in the town-gown context, the democratic role of the press, and how a particularly contentious social and political issue—same-sex marriage—was experienced and framed by concerned citizens in a small conservative rural city that is also the home to a liberal arts and sciences university campus.
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| ISSN: | 2369-1190 2368-416X |