i PATHWAYS INTO SOCIAL MOVEMENT ACTIVISM, ALTRUISM AND SELF-INTEREST: THE LGBT AND MARRIAGE MOVEMENT IN NEW JERSEY A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Nadine Sullivan May, 2011 Examining Committee Members: Julia A. Ericksen, Advisory Chair, Sociology Sherri L. Grasmuck, Sociology Gary A. Mucciaroni, Political Science Rebecca T. Alpert, External Member, Religion ii © Copyright 2011 by Nadine Sullivan All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Pathways into Social Movement Activism, Altruism, and Self-Interest: The LGBT and Marriage Movement in New Jersey Nadine Sullivan Doctor of Philosophy Temple University, 2011 This research builds upon recent scholarship on pathways into social movement activism and the role of altruism and self-interest in activists’ motivations for political action. The social movement literature has often focused across movements, looking at opponents on different sides of a social movement cause. Training its lens within-movement, this study sought to discover factors that first led gay and lesbian movement constituents to become activists. It also sought to determine their cohesion around, and their motivation for, their present activism. Using a qualitative methodology, I interviewed a convenience sample of 66 lesbian and gay activists at different levels of involvement (leaders and rank-and-file) across a range of social movement organizations (both working-for and not-working-for marriage). I also monitored news reports on changes in laws affecting gays and lesbians, the public communications of a range of LGBT organizations, and engaged in participant observation in a variety of social movement sites. Distinct patterns emerged with activists who did not work-for-marriage (general activists) being more likely than marriage activists to have grown up in politically-active homes or to have had early exposure to active social movements. Leaders (both marriage and general) were more likely than rank-and-file activists to locate their activism in a disposition that resists injustice. And general activists were more likely to situate their activism in a concern for the welfare of others (altruism), while marriage activists were more likely to locate their present activism in their desire to legally protect their partners and/or co-parented children (self-interest). iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to the informants who took of their time to share their stories. Not only my intellectual understanding, but my own life also, has been enriched by the wealth and breadth of your lived experience. I stand in awe of your dedication to human rights and was frequently made freshly aware of how much I have benefitted – free riding – on your labors. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank those who have helped me along this academic journey, either with a timely word or smile, or by actual, active encouragement. My experience would not have been as rich, or I as sane, without the active support of my cohort: Helen Marie Rosenbaum Miamidian, Melissa Pittaoulis, Mary Gane, Elisa Bernd, Olga Povarnitsyna Shchuchinov, Karla Weaver, and Sushama Rajapaksa. I am also grateful for the encouragement of those, further along in the program than I, who reached back to foster newcomers, including: Rosemary Feeley, Jude Hand, Janice Johnson, and Vincent Louis. I have also benefited directly from the friendship of Kyle Derr, Melody Boyd, Joanna Cohen, John Balzarini, and Brunhild Seeger-diNovi. I am thankful for the loving assistance, across time, of the sociology department staff: Sharon Smith, Pamela Smallwood, Catherine Staples, and Don Hartman. I extend my thanks as well to the members of my advisory committee, Julia Ericksen, Sherri Grasmuck, and Gary Mucciaroni, for their painstaking efforts in regard to this work. In addition, I am grateful to Rebecca Alpert for her kindness in agreeing to be the outside reader of this work. Many times, along my nine year path at Temple and my four year path at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, I received the invaluable gift of mentorship: in Temple v Sociology, from Professors Sherri Grasmuck, Lisa F. Handler, Kevin Delaney, Shanyang Zhao, Dustin Kidd, Gretchen Condran, and David Allen; in Temple’s Women’s Studies Department, from Professors Laura Levitt and Patricia Melzer; and at my first intellectual love, Stockton College, from Professors Deborah Figart, Ellen Mutari, Penny Dugan, Marilyn Vito, Beverly Vaughn, Joe Rubenstein, Ellen Clay, Elinor Lerner, Elizabeth Calamidas, Nancy Ashton, Elaine Ingulli, David Burdick, and Janice Joseph. I would also like to thank my friend and spiritual mentor, Rev. Margie Grotto, who first encouraged me to return to school. Along the path, I also benefitted from the love and encouragement of Hope and Pearl Lewis, the intellectual friendship and encouragement of Cindy Sterner Macpherson, and the undying faith in my abilities of Chris Middleton. vi DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my memory of my parents, Dr. Cornelius Francis Sullivan, Jr., D.O. and Rose Marie Ewerth Sullivan, R.N. , both of whom passed away while I was in the process of earning this doctorate and the degrees, minors, and certificates, along its pathway. It is dedicated to them for all the ways, large and small, that both their encouragement, and their failures at encouragement drove me ever forward, until it was complete. Mom and Dad, it is a great sorrow that you could not be here with me today, but I did it. I went back to college. It is also dedicated to those who love me, who have remained with me through the journey, among them: my sister, Dr. Constance Rose Sullivan-Blum, Ph.D. , who made me proud every step of the way as she beat me down this path and my two daughters, Sarah Elizabeth Rose Boujais-Nelling, Ed.D.(c). and Lisa Christine Sullivan, B.A., who also always make me beam. You are each my daily encouragement and greatest joy. Each of you has blessed me more and gotten better with every passing day we have had together. It is because of you, Connie, Sarah, and Lisa , that I best know love. You are the ones I count as most like me, and every day, you reduce my sense of being alone in this world. Because of you, my life is full and rich and sweet. Thank you for helping me make it through. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................ iv DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................... x CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 Choice of Terminology ....................................................................................................... 3 Theorizing Social Movements .......................................................................................... 4 Similar Studies ................................................................................................................... 9 Motivations to Activism ..................................................................................................... 9 U.S. Lesbian and Gay Movements ................................................................................... 18 The homophile movement ............................................................................................... 19 Stonewall and the gay liberation movement ..................................................................... 20 Lesbian feminism and gay hedonism ................................................................................ 22 The movement effects of AIDS ....................................................................................... 25 AIDS organizations ........................................................................................................... 26 The marriage movement ................................................................................................... 29 Relationship Recognition Forms ....................................................................................... 34 Narratives as Data ............................................................................................................. 39 Upcoming Chapters .......................................................................................................... 42 2. METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................... 43 Use of Modified Grounded Theory ................................................................................... 44 Choice of Field Site .......................................................................................................... 45 viii Sample Description and Recruitment ............................................................................... 48 Sample stratification ......................................................................................................... 51 Methodological Challenges .............................................................................................