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Abstract
This thesis argues for the hegemonic function of mass mediated portrayals of gay and lesbian parents and identifies verbal and visual rhetorical strategies of those portrayals. Specifically, I argue that a quantitative increase in visibility of same-sex parenting in U.S. popular press from 2004 to 2005 does not translate to unmitigated progress. Rather, homophobic, (hetero)sexist, and heteronormative constructions of gay familial life are repeated. Challenges to these dominant ideologies discursively emerge, but this resistance, I suggest, is tenuous at best. This study is important for illustrating the cultural constructedness of homo/heterosexuality as it arises in relation to parenting, for exposing the hegemonic power relations of how same-sex parenting is put into discourse, and for showing how these discourses are used rhetorically to support particular power relations and to persuade audiences. These findings have implications for the development of gay and lesbian identities and the progress of the gay and lesbian movement.