Another Victory for Equality

A map of the US depicting the laws regarding same-sex marriage in states across the country. See post for details! (File taken from Wikimedia Commons)

On June 24th, the state of New York legalized same-sex marriage, becoming the sixth state in the US to do so.

Notes on the map accompanying this post: Dark blue indicates states in which same-sex marriage is completely legal. The slightly lighter blue indicates states in which couples may be in a union that gives rights similar to marriage. The lightest, cyan blue indicates states in which legislation grants limited rights to same-sex couples. Dark gray indicates that the state recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. Light gray indicates that the state neither specifically prohibits nor recognizes same-sex marriages. Salmon indicates that the state has statutes banning same-sex marriage. Bright red states have constitutional provisions banning same-sex marriages. Dark red indicates that the state’s constitution prohibits same-sex marriages and some or all kinds of same-sex unions. Big surprise that the 6 “Tornado Alley” states have this. Sorry for the long-winded explanation! All this information and more can be found here.

This is another big step forward in the fight for marriage equality in the US for same-sex couples. 6 states have fully legalized same-sex marriage: Iowa, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, and now New York. This trend began around the year 2009, in which four states, all in New England, legalized same-sex marriage. The first fully legal gay marriage to take place in America occurred in 2004 in Massachusetts, and was a huge victory in the fight for LGBT rights.

Since then, things seem only to be speeding up for gay rights. After a lot of vacillating on the issue, President Obama has begun to take a stand over the last half-year or so, first pressing for the successful repeal of DADT in December of last year, the military policy barring gays from military service (which will finally go into effect on September 20), and later announcing that his administration will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.

These events, along with the most recent news of New York’s wonderful decision, is a powerful sign that the public is moving inexorably toward a positive attitude toward marriage equality and homosexuality in general. Though there are still many staunch opponents of gay rights, and will be for years to come, the real momentum seems to be on the right side in this debate, and that’s not going to change.

The Peoples’ News

The news industry is one that is undergoing a constant evolution. From word of mouth to the printed press, and on to radio, televised, and digital media, the art of spreading the word has changed enormously throughout its lifetime.

Nowadays, another dimension of news has come to the fore: The social dimension.

Most Americans, and indeed most people with access to news coverage all around the world, are most familiar with a type of news reporting that is presented in a kind of lecture-oriented format. Stories, at least those sent to press by major news organizations, are usually very factual and objective, and tend to follow a common pattern. Now, these are good things to have in such a crucial and informative media source, don’t get me wrong. But if you look at the broader, grander scale of the news industry, this kind of media is something of an anomaly.

Back in the 19th century, and even well before, news was spread by gossip, word on the street, and pamphleteering. One could make a case, as Tom Standage, business editor at the Economist does, that early American revolutionaries like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine were essentially low-tech bloggers, using pamphlets and propagandistic methods to spread the news. Before such technology as the radio or television emerged (making competitive news creation prohibitively expensive for most), news was communicated largely by coffee shop conversations and pamphlets handed out on the street. News then was much more partisan and was fully conscious of this fact.

Surprisingly enough, technological advancement seems to be bringing the news back to this kind of media, and away from what 19th century press developed into. In other words, moving forward in tech is bringing us back in time.

That’s not to say that this is a bad thing! As the internet becomes more and more pervasive, and more and more people begin using it to discuss and spread ideas (as I’m doing now), the news will gradually be taken out of the hands of the few and become produced by the many. Already, sites like Twitter and Facebook (both of which can be linked to this article at the bottom of the page) allow people of all kinds to share events and discussions with friends. In fact, the news of the death of Osama bin Laden was first publicized accidentally by a Pakistani man tweeting about the events unfolding near his home.

This is very reminiscent of those 19th century times when pamphlets and common people were the main vehicle by which news traveled. Things are also becoming more partisan, as they were then. As news becomes more dominated by and dependent on the power of the internet, people are more able to weigh in and voice their opinions about stories of all kinds. In fact, social networks like Facebook allow people to almost create news stories, forcing the larger media world to pick up the story. If enough people take up a cause online, the industry has no choice but to notice.

All of these things lead me to one simple conclusion: The until-recently monopolistic news industry is quickly and inexorably shifting to a social one, and it’s up to the industry to jump on this bandwagon or be run over by it. The potential for an amazing new era of news is enormous. Which side will they end up on?

For more on this subject, and to see some of the writing that inspired and informed this post, check out this Economist discussion.

A Little… Photokeeping

So, I suppose my once-a-week promise of reinvigorating this blog never materialized sadly. But as I checked in on a whim yesterday, I noticed that I had comments to respond to, and that according to the site stats, things on Mundi Cogito are still getting attention! So first, I’d like to thank all those who have read (or even consistently read!) this blog. And I offer a special thanks to all those who have contributed to the conversation on any of the issues discussed in Mundi Cogito’s articles.

But I also learned a few things in my hiatus from the blogosphere. Most importantly, I learned about copyright law as it relates to the pictures on this blog.

Now, I love most of the pictures I’ve found to use in these posts, and I’ve credited nearly all of them to their original creators. But, after learning about how this stuff really works in the US, and after hearing about another blogger who used a news source’s picture and was promptly sued, I’ve decided to remove all photos not directly taken by me or taken from the public domain from the site. (Incidentally, this blogger was a 19-year old in Portland who writes news analysis. Sounds hauntingly familiar, no?)

So please bear with me as the pictures on Mundi Cogito disappear. I’m hoping to get more good public domain pictures, as well as taking more pictures myself, but we’ll see how it goes. For today, I regret to inform you that Mundi Cogito will no longer have nearly as many pictures.

On the bright side, this should help speed my writing process! Finding appropriate pictures for a given subject was a surprisingly deep time-sink, and I often found myself not publishing an article for days at a time, due to a lack of related pictures.

And after reading those comments and seeing my site stats, I’ve been encouraged to step back into Mundi Cogito, to bring you the best news analysis, social commentary, spiritual thought, and international discussion that I can offer. Enjoy!