Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbySeptember 23rd, 2008
The campaign against Proposition 8, the California anti-gay marriage amendment, has been collecting funds and promising an advertising effort. Now they have begun to deliver.
Historically, advertising around gay issues has been complexing, leaving average gay concerned about whether the No on 8 campaign would skirt the issue or reach the right audience. I wondered if same-sex marriage would be mentioned, if gay people would be the focus, and if the program selection would be based on audience or whether the ads would only run on Bravo and Logo or at 3:00 am.
So I was a little surprised last night while watching the season opening episode of Dancing With the Stars when an ad came on with a lovely older couple asking us to treat all of their children the same. But it did answer some questions.
It appears that the No on 8 advertising will be structured to reach the broadest markets. Karen Ocamb reports
Here’s where it is scheduled to air: Dancing with the Stars Premier, Heroes Premier, Grey’s Anatomy Premier, The Presidential Debate, Survivor, Ugly Betty Premier, The Office Premier, Colbert Report and The Daily Show, The Today Show and Good Morning America, Ellen, Oprah, The Tonight Show and David Letterman, Saturday Night Live…and more, per the press release.
Nor will the campaign shy away from using either the words “gay” or “marriage”.
If Prop 8 passes, our gay daughter and thousands of our fellow Californians will lose the right to marry. Please don’t eliminate that right – for anyone’s family.
However, at least in this first ad, the focus will be on presenting those with whom the straight viewer can empathize.
So far I’m impressed. Let’s hope that the advertising is effective.
Of course, the supporters of Proposition 8 have trotted out their talking points, some of which are so obviously nutty that you wonder if it they lose votes everytime they say them.
Churches will be required to perform homosexual marriage ceremonies or face prosecution under anti-discrimination laws.
Only the koolaid drinkers believe that.
Public Schools will teach that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are normal and acceptable-and if you disagree, you are a bigot.
And this argument has the ill advised effect of reminding undecided voters that the ones who are opposed to marriage equality are going to be perceived as bigots (and that many of them are bigots). That’s not what I’d consider an effective tool at recruiting support.
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werdna
September 24th, 2008
“Complexing”? I like the sound of that but I’m not quite sure what it means… And who is “average gay”?
I like the ad ok though.
Ben in Oakland
September 24th, 2008
They may not shy away from words like gay or marriage, but they are defiintely shying away from people that are gay or gay people that are married or gay people with kids. I just had the following editorial published in SF’s Bay Area Reporter. I apologize if I already posted in on BTB– i have a hard time keeping track of things that i post.
“To begin with, I am no one in particular– just a happy gay man who hopes my marriage will survive the election. I am politically aware, knowledgeable on gay issues, as out as I can be, and possess a decent understanding of humanity. I have no political axe to grind.
After the No on 8 kickoff, I spoke briefly to a man who is very high up in gay politics. I asked if they were going to repeat the campaign against Prop. 22: talking about being nice, tolerance, freedom, etc. Or, would they deal with the substantive issues of anti-gay prejudice, and the social, financial, and legal impact on gay people, especially those with children, of not having marriage available? He responded that the focus groups had shown that undecided voters respond best to the former approach, and that would be the emphasis in order to move those voters.
“Do you mean to say that you are going to fight an anti-gay marriage initiative without showing any gay people or even talking about marriage?” While conceding that personal stories and real people are relevant, he repeated what the focus groups show, and that political processes like phone banks will trump personal stories. Liberal tolerance will be the message.
I pointed out some things to him. A smart friend of mine saw the anti-8 ad where a straight bride is continually prevented from getting to her wedding. Until she got to the very end and saw the No on 8 message, she had no idea what it was about. She reasonably wondered why a heterosexual wedding was featured when the discussion is about gay people. I told him of my experience against the Briggs Initiative thirty years ago, when we were fighting the invisibility of the closet as well as that hateful legislation. The public could see real gay people, not the phantasms of the rabid Right. And that reality moved them.
I also pointed out that this strategy has been tried repeatedly, and possibly except for Arizona in 2006, it has yet to work. It failed miserably against Prop. 22. Now, I am not immersed in political culture. And I know that there is far more to politics than merely presenting issues and people voting. The politico may well be right, and I, quite wrong. Though his approach has merit, it is very troubling to me. It smells uncomfortably of the closet, which I have long maintained is the real enemy, not the Radical Right. It tells us to be invisible, not to talk about our lives and the REAL issues we face, lest we offend some undecided voter who needs to be manipulated into doing the right thing.
It avoids the larger issue of anti-gay prejudice, an apparently invisible 800 pound lavender gorilla. Research and experience show that people who know gay people tend not to vote against them. If we do not show gay people, we remain a faceless, menacing other, instead of friend, neighbor, or family. It is easy to vote against someone who is invisible. This was the lesson of Briggs and Prop.22.
I can see producing commercials featuring pretty straight girls. But why are we not also showing the couple who have been together for forty years, and who, because they cannot marry, are not eligible for each other’s pensions, guaranteeing one of them an old age of poverty? Why not show the two women who are raising their children, children who deserve the same protections that marriage would bring their family as it does their hetero counterparts? Why are we not showing the minister marrying two men in their church, surrounded by their happy, cheering families? Why are we not showing indignant Rabbis and Episcopal, UCC, and other ministers who don’t want a few denominations telling them what to do? Why are we not showing the man who nursed his partner through a heart attack? Why are we showing anything but us?
I cannot insist that I am right, but my life’s experience tells me I am. And telling the truth, especially in the face of so much hate and lies, is never a mistake. What if we lost this election because undecided voters say, “I voted yes because I don’t know any gay people, or anything about them. And I didn’t get that commercial.”
Which brings me to my final point. If you want to do the minimum against Prop. 8, unless your physical safety is an issue, COME OUT NOW– especially to your family and friends. Not eventually, not next month, but NOW. Ask those people to vote NO on 8 for your sake, or, if they cannot vote no, at least, not to vote on it.
Be the change that you would see in the world. This will be your gift to the future.
Michigan-Matt
September 24th, 2008
It’s important for us to beat Prop 8 and ANY FMA type prop in order to keep open the opportunity to secure marriage equality for gays… but it’s a disservice to the collective natl effort if we find comfort in dismissing voters with ‘tuded responses like this:
“Churches will be required to perform homosexual marriage ceremonies or face prosecution under anti-discrimination laws. Only the koolaid drinkers believe that.”
I can tell you in Michigan in 04, where we lost 61-39% to an FMA prop -but JFKerry carried the state- we had lesbian litigants in the news pushing nonsense like dragging a mom & pop print shop into the limelight because they wouldn’t print a provocative ad for the lesbian’s bar night… or a gay activists threatening to expose bisexual local govt officials if the police kept cracking down on rest stop public gays sex… we can’t win if we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.
Honest, the lesson should be to address those issues directly and be on the side of voters… as in, “No, we aren’t interested in forcing churchs to hold gay marriage ceremonies because we don’t generally believe in organized religion… if a case develops, we’ll support amendatory language to make that point clear in statute or the constitution.”
It’s far better than dismissing those kind of voter concerns –legit or not to our mind– and building the plurality we need to win at the ballot box.
We’re the ones fighting against adverse change. We need the voters trust in this battle… not the satisfaction of a three-snap dismissal.
Joe
September 24th, 2008
I think the ad is a big yawn.
Pretty crappy actually. I hope this isn’t the best they have to offer.
Timothy Kincaid
September 24th, 2008
Matt,
Please provide substantiation for your list of activist extremism. Specifically, provide links to news reports about the lesbians in Michigan suing a Mom and Pop printer and also provide a link to a news story about the Michigan gay activist threatening to expose bisexual government officials.
Further, please provide evidence that gay people who seek to marry “don’t generally believe in organized religion”. I’m not looking for an example of someone who doesn’t, but rather a report or study that shows that it is a general truth that same-sex couples seeking to marry don’t believe in organized religion. I’ve not studied the issue, but both personal observation and a pattern I’ve observed in print media suggest that a large percentage of same-sex couples that marry also are congregants of some for of organized religion.
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