Pathways into Social Movement Activism, Altruism, and Self-Interest: The LGBT and Marriage Movement in New Jersey

Abstract

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).