Sophia’s Correspondence with President Obama: A Durkheimian Analysis of Contemporary American Society

Abstract

“Gay rights” have been a major issue particularly during the presidential elections in the United States over the years. The two political camps—the Democrats and the Republicans—are used to engaging in serious debate with regard to legalization of gay-marriage before every election in the recent past. In the last presidential elections held on 6 November 2012, this issue was reinforced and gained renewed attention in the political landscape of the United States. The Democrats, commonly known as “social-liberal”, are usually sympathetic to gay-people’s rights, while the Republicans are socially conservative and not positive toward gayism. In 2012 elections, the Democrats directly support the demand for homosexual marriage. In that context, just a few days ahead of elections, a ten-year-old American girl—Sophia Bailey Klugh—wrote an emotional letter to President Barack Obama, Democratic Party’s candidate, thanking him for his support of gay-marriage, and sharing some painful personal experience with homosexuality (see Appendix 1). President Obama responded to little Sophia with a great compassion and care (see Appendix 2), which drew huge public attention not only in the United States, but also in international arena. Although the contents of both letters are brief and precise, they reflect some significant socio-cultural realities and trajectories of the twenty-first-century American society. Against this backdrop, this paper, especially focusing on the conversations between Sophia and Obama, attempts to analyze the contemporary American society in the light of Durkheim’s sociological theory.

Keywords: Durkheim, social solidarity, anomie, Sophia-Obama correspondence, American society, democracy, gay-marriage.