Lack of national LGBT media coverage of Wisconsin's anti-gay amendment puzzling

As November 7 approaches, the lack of national high-profile media coverage could spell trouble for the campaign fighting the amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution that would permanently ban marriage and civil unions for lesbian and gay couples in Wisconsin. This is a symptom of a long-standing problem in the gay community where the national LGBT media and organizations focus their attention and resources on states like New York and California at the expense of states, like Wisconsin, that are not on the coasts or aren't believed to have significant LGBT populations.

The October 10 issue of The Advocate has a feature story on the struggle for marriage equality that highlights several battleground states. One would think that such an article would prominently feature one of the highest profile marriage equality battles going on this fall, Wisconsin's marriage and civil unions ban referendum which is considered by many political insiders to be one of the best chances to turn the tide of anti-gay amendments which have been passing recently in many states.

High profile articles in LGBT oriented magazines such as The Advocate are important to the success of campaigns fighting referenda and legislation because they result in increased fundraising potential and attract the attention and resources of national political leaders and groups such as NGLTF and HRC.

The lack of attention given to the struggle in Wisconsin is especially offensive when one looks at the rest of the content of the magazine which includes a 6-page cover story on New Jersey's disgraced ex-governor Jim McGreevy, and a feature on infomercial psychic Miss Cleo.

The absence of national coverage is also problematic because many of the important LGBT political donors live on the East and West coasts and it reinforces the stereotype of the midwest as "flyover country". This bias is evident in The Advocate article where the three states hightlighted are New York, California, and Washington.

The truth though, is that Wisconsin has a history of progessive-minded LGBT-supportive legislation and a committment to equality. The nation's first statewide non-discrimination legislation was passed here in Wisconsin in 1982. Also, Wisconsin elected the nation's first openly lesbian (non-incumbent) woman to congress when 2nd District Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin was elected in 1998.

In addition to getting short shrift in traditional media, new media coverage is also lackluster. Prominent gay bloggers such as AmericaBlog's John Aravosis who receives over 100,000 unique visitors a day, and Andrew Sullivan who blogs for Time Magazine have barely even mentioned the struggle going in Wisconsin. AmericaBlog has mentioned it twice in the past year and Andrew Sullivan has never mentioned it since he has been blogging for Time. This is particularly ironic since Andrew Sullivan wrote a book which emphasized how important it is for lesbian and gay couples to be able to marry.

Fair Wisconsin, the organization leading the fight against the amendment has built up substantial resources and run a high-profile campaign but they are fighting an uphill battle. The importance of support from national LGBT media and organizations that can bring more money cannot be understated.

Things may be changing though with rumors that major national media outlets were slated to be present at the Madison canvass that happened Tuesday night. Perhaps seeing the campaign in action will increase the amount of earned media for the Fair Wisconsin campaign.