Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Two Years After the Attacks, 9/10/03
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec03/gay_8-13.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What does the word marriage mean?
2. What is the legal definition? What is a more cultural definition?
3. Can two people of the same-sex marry each other?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What is the current law concerning gay marriage in the United States?

U.S. federal law currently prohibits marriage between same-sex couples.

2. Who is opposed to the law and why?

Gay rights advocates argue that preventing people from getting married -- whether they are gay or straight -- amounts to discrimination and violates human rights.

3. What federal Act currently defines marriage?

At the federal level, the government has said it is opposed to gay marriages. The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Clinton, defines marriage as "only a legal union between one man and one woman."

4. What state offers gay couples an alternative to marriage?

Marriage licenses are granted by the states. None provides licenses to gay and lesbian couples, though Vermont allows "civil unions" that give gay couples the same state benefits as a married couple.

5. What clause of the Constitution may offer gay couples a legal loophole to fight the current laws against same-sex marriage?

If Massachusetts does legalize marriage, gay couples hope the Constitution's "Full Faith and Credit Clause" will cancel out the 1996 law.

6. How does President Bush feel about same-sex marriage?

President Bush, during a recent news conference, cited his religious beliefs in saying, "I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman."

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. What other issues can you think of that force lawmakers to balance Americans' right to pursue happiness with the diversity of cultural and religious beliefs?

2. If the state of Massachusetts votes in favor of gay marriage, explain how a lawyer representing a gay couple in another state might argue that the "Defense of Marriage Act" is unconstitutional based on the "Faith and Credit Clause" of the Constitution.

3. Research the origins of the idea of "separation of church and state." How does this concept relate to the legal debate over gay marriage?

Write a 300-500 word essay on either of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org]. Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.