Political campaign
Out4Marriage is a 'multi-platform' political campaign that was started on 8 May 2012 in response to the British Government's consultation concerning the legalisation of same-sex marriage in England and Wales.[1] It centres on YouTube—and other social media—videos in which those filmed give their views on why they support marriage for same-sex individuals, with each video finishing with the tagline "And that's why I'm out for marriage. Are you?". Creators of the videos have included members of the public, Members of Parliament, peers and celebrities.[2]
Its goal is to raise awareness about the issue of equal marriage and to provide a voice for the people who support it. Out4Marriage is modelled on the It Gets Better YouTube project, launched by US LGBT activist Dan Savage, where politicians, celebrities and members of the public gave hope to teenagers coming to terms with their sexuality.[3]
Campaign background and history
The British Government's consultation on equal marriage was started on 15 March 2012, prompting the launch of a Christian campaign group called the Coalition for Marriage (C4M).[4] The website for C4M states that they are "an umbrella group of individuals and organisations in the UK that support traditional marriage and oppose any plans to redefine it.".[5]
As part of the British Government's consultations on the introduction of same-sex marriage in the UK, Out4Marriage's Directors of Campaigns James-J Walsh assisted by Joseph Musgrove, a volunteer who went on to work for the Conservative equal marriage campaign wrote the official submission document calling for legislation to allow same-sex religious marriage, enhanced spousal pension rights, and courtesy titles for peers.[6][7]
The Out4Marriage website states that the campaign was conceived by Buonaiuto and Pink News founder, Benjamin Cohen, however since the initial video Buonaiuto moved away to other projects. The website also posits that a “global team of volunteers are helping to recruit new video makers, moderate submissions and engage with politicians”.[8] In the first week, the Out4Marriage campaign received considerable press coverage.[9][10]
Home coming
Prior to the Out4Marriage campaign launching, a short-film was created called Homecoming, depicting the proposal of a gay soldier to his partner, upon returning home from war. The film received 700,000 YouTube views in its first week online.[11][12] In a BBC World News interview on 11 May 2012, Buonaiuto explained that Homecoming was what had inspired Out4Marriage. He went on to say that those working on the campaign were all volunteers and that no money had been spent on the project.[13]
LobbyALord
In the run up to the Lords debate in the wake of Lord Dear proposing effectively a deletion amendment, James-J Walsh led on the campaigning activity to engage the House of Lords, he designed the very first platform for being able to digitally engage Peers within the House of Lords. As part of this Walsh recruited Chris Ward, a web developer, to build an online peers lobbying site that enabled ordinary people to connect with often unaccountable Lords and Baronesses.
The Site www.LobbyALord.org was receiving traffic resulting at peeks an email being sent to a peer every 8 seconds in the 72 hours before the debate, after endorsements by Grindr a gay mobile dating app, who issued a message to 1 million of its members, and Stephen Fry via his Twitter account.
Notable contributions
Within the first three weeks after the campaign was launched, videos were uploaded to the Out4Marriage YouTube account from public figures such as Richard Branson,[14] UK pop girl band The Saturdays[15] and human rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell.[16]
Many Members of Parliament also recorded videos for the campaign, including the then Home Secretary, Theresa May; Former Equalities minister Lynne Featherstone and former cabinet minister, Jack Straw.
