Jurgen Habermas and the Public Sphere Shine a Light on Gay Marriage

In Jurgen Habermas’ book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, he delivers the inciting idea for the creation of a public sphere, a place where individuals come together to claim the space that contains their existence. According to Habermas:

“The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves…The medium of this political confrontation was peculiar and without historical precedent: people’s public use of their reason (27).”

While Habermas was using this example of the creation of the public sphere in regard to an emerging economic model, it has relevance to the emerging model of gay marriage.

Twenty years ago the idea of gay marriage seemed nearly impossible; Americans were, by and large, historically homophobic: not any more. With all of the discourse that has emerged in the public sphere on the topic of not just gay rights but also gay marriage, public opinion is certainly being changed. Where, in the past, there was no public space for homosexuality to exist without persecution, the gay rights movement has carved out a plot for the movement to grow from. This has led to same-sex partner rights, to military inclusion, to civil unions, and now the right to marry in some states. All of this has been achieved not through violence on the part of the oppressed, but through what Habermas has adroitly called reason.

            In an article from the Huffington Post titled, Gay Marriage Poll: More Americans Support Marriage Equality by Alana Horowitz, she gives evidence that people are opening their minds to a concept that, previously, had been significantly demonized. According to Horowitz, 

The poll, released by POLITICO and George Washington University, showed that, out of 1,000 likely voters, 40% of respondents said they support marriage equality. 30% said they supported civil unions and 24% said they didn't think same-sex couples should be able to enter any type of legal union.

Even more telling, perhaps, is how many people--1 in 5--have changed their minds on the issue. This poll lends support to a growing trend that people are evolving on gay rights.

Another important finding is the discrepancy between young and older voters which it comes to the rights of same-sex couples. 63 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds backed same-sex marriage, while only 36 percent of voters from 30-59 said they supported it. Only 30% of seniors said they thought LGBT couples should be able to marry (1).

The Constitution is working hard for the marginalized and disenfranchised Americans in ways many may have previously thought unimaginable—certainly those who drafted the Constitution.

The public mind has been changed, and so too, the public space has changed with it. This change is positive in that it has healed a divide in our society and has not taken any rights away from others to gain this equality; it has merely brought our nation more into balance.

Works Cited:

Horowitz, Alana. Gay Marriage Poll: More Americans Support Marriage Equality.

Huffington Post. 12/09/2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/09/gay-marriage-poll_n_2267594.html

Habermas, Jurgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public

Sphere. Cambridge,Mass: MIT Press. 1991. Print.