I’m very happy with the progress Sean and I have made on our website so far—though there’s still work to be done. I know that part of the progress was held up because we were struggling to find all the major players in the Webster case due to confidentiality issues and the amount of time that had passed since it was challenged. Unfortunately, Carole Barnabas—our teacher who had agreed to an Q & A over email—has not gotten back to me, and I fear we will not be able to incorporate her perspective into the website. However, now that we probably have the name of the alleged challenger, that does make up for it a bit. We’re trying to find out more about the challenger—who, based on evidence, we believe to Reverend Ronald Morse from Victory Baptist Church in Rochester, NY.

Earlier tonight when Sean and I were at work, we were discussing our plan for finishing the website this week. He mentioned that when he messaged the Reverend on Facebook, there was an indication that Morse had seen Sean’s message, but Sean did not get a response. I’m worried that Morse might’ve just decided to ignore our reaching out to him. Sometimes Facebook can be weird and it is not the most reliable way of communication, so I’m not completely hopeless, but I’m just being realistic. If that’s the case, I will understand, but I’ll be disappointed. I wanted to be able to portray both sides, but I definitely think we tried to find out as much as we could. Furthermore, we’re going to construct a background based on what we are able to learn about the Reverend and his church, the Victory Baptist Church.

When looking for articles about Morse on Newspapers.com (s/o to Cathy, Thanks!) I found an article from 2005 where Reverend Morse and numerous other Rochester area religious leaders signed a statement affirming their belief that marriage was between a man and a woman.

This is great because it helps provide historical context. Of course, there are still challenges to gay marriage in the US even though it is legal now, but I feel like in the early-mid 2000s tensions were much more heightened. Different states were passing laws to legalize and illegalize gay marriage. I’m going to look into the Reverend’s church a little more to try and find more historical context this week.

For next week, I’m also going to finish up the StoryMap; provided it doesn’t give me any more trouble. Then, I have to polish up and proofread all our content so that it reads well and is grammatically correct. Similarly, I’m trying to figure out the best way to present our newspaper clippings and images on the website so that they are with the content they relate to, but then I think maybe it’s good to keep them together. Sean and I are navigating that and we created a game plan to put the finishing touches on the website for next Monday.