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 lobbyMay 19th, 2009
The National Organization for Marriage first brought us a Gathering Storm of oookie spookie actors being scared by a downpour of gay marriages. Then they set up a topless posing, fake-boobed, beauty pageant queen runner up as the “face of the marriage movement“.
Now NOM has a new ad that they are running. Check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpjPzhSjPqQAwwww. Cute kids. Makes you want to give them a cookie.
But as for changing minds, I’m not too worried about the impact of this one. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t take my political advice from toddlers.
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Christopher Waldrop
May 19th, 2009
Yeah, cute kids. I guess NOM thinks this one’s bulletproof because no one would ever put kids in a parody ad. Never. This one pretty well undermines itself, though. The subtext (I think) is the tired old argument that marriage is only about procreation. Without marriage, there wouldn’t be grandchildren, right? Well, I just hope NOM is screening all its married members to make sure they’re procreating. And I also hope that, in addition to fighting same-sex marriage, they’re working to invalidate the marriages of any heterosexual couples who don’t have children.
----
May 19th, 2009
“Well, I just hope NOM is screening all its married members to make sure they’re procreating. And I also hope that, in addition to fighting same-sex marriage, they’re working to invalidate the marriages of any heterosexual couples who don’t have children.”
Not to mention taking away children from heterosexual couples who aren’t legally married.
AJD
May 19th, 2009
Even by the standard that NOM has established with its ads, this one’s pretty bad. Nevertheless, don’t underestimate the power of cute little kids saying creepy things to scare the shit out of suburban mothers.
Patrick
May 19th, 2009
Wait a minute. I thought children were too young to be taught about things related to homosexuality. But here we have the NOM training children on matters related to homosexuality. So, do they believe this to be an inappropriate topic for children to learn about or not? Or is it only inappropriate if they aren’t exploiting the children for their own political agenda? The next time I hear them complain that such topics are inappropriate for children, I’ll just remind them of their own commercials.
Kristie
May 19th, 2009
This ad is so ridiculous. Kids are only “confused” about same-sex marriage if adults confuse them. If you tell kids that people get married to who they love and sometimes a man loves another man or a woman loves another woman there’s no confusion. And 9 times out of 10 the kids will just go, “Oh, ok…” and go back to playing. If people are honest with children and don’t treat them like little morons they’ll do fine. Kids are smarter than people give them credit for being and they don’t get confused about sexual orientation until some “concerned” adult makes them think that some sexual orientations are bad or wrong.
Cooner
May 19th, 2009
GOD FORBID our kids should be taught “a new way of thinking.”
Honestly, if your worldview is so fragile and sensitive that having your children possibly exposed to anything potentially new or different out there in the big scary world, do us all a favor and home-school your kids. Seriously.
Emily K
May 19th, 2009
honestly, I think that kids understand new ideas better than adults do – and they tend to be more open minded about possible answers. When a boy transitioned to a girl in my little sister’s elementary school, none of the kids really said “boo” about it – only certain parents did that.
Jason D
May 19th, 2009
I was just thinking about this sort of thing today, there’s something at PHB about a gay couple invited to a family get together on the condition they pretend to be college buddies so that the parents don’t have to answer questions.
I always think it’s funny when they say “it will confuse children!”
Children spend a good deal of time being confused about one thing or another. The world itself is confusing to someone who knows nothing about it. So being confused about one more thing is hardly a drop in the bucket. You know what stops confusion — education.
The other thing is that children don’t have the hangups of adults, they are more open to new ideas, just look at that Ethan kid who organized his own equality rally. He gets it. And that’s what they’re afraid of.
They’re afraid that the kids, while still able to think about a subject without fear or prejudice will…disagree with their parents! They’ll think for themselves before they have been programmed not to!! Ahhhgh!
Duncan
May 19th, 2009
These ads are begging for a response. Consider:
-A Universalist Unitarian pastor saying: “I know these gay couples, I see them happy together, I wish I could declare them married, but I would be braking the law in doing so. I’m forced to choose between my faith and the law…”
-A doctor: “I want to make sure all patients can see their partners, but for gays the government has put these bureaucratic obstacles…”
-A senator: “We should remove the gender-based restrictions that are preventing thousands of couples in this country from marrying. It is not for the government to dictate how its citizens should marry.”
And perhaps a few pieces of scripture to clarify what the Biblical standard of marriage really would be.
staci
May 19th, 2009
Duncan, that is a great idea! Perhaps we could see something from Emily K? I bet it would turn out great if she took this project!!! I love the Carrie spoof she did.
Cooner
May 19th, 2009
Duncan,
Those would be some great ads. Especially if they feature REAL people, not actors. ^.^
HappyCat
May 19th, 2009
Patrick, the religious nuts believe it is fine to teach children about homosexuality, as long as they are taught to hate everything homo, you know, the same way the KKK used the bible to discriminate against POC.
Andrew
May 20th, 2009
Don’t allow your disgust with this ad to allow you to underestimate it. It’s a very powerful ad, and it distracts reasonable people by dangling false arguments in front of them using little kids (and in doing so, it’s pretty despicable).
That said, it’s not past parody, in fact it’s ripe for it. And you can absolutely use kids in such a parody.
We should not make the mistake of going mild or playing nice. It’s going to be critical to call these people what they are, and what they stand for what it is. And then we need to make people laugh. If we can do that, we’ll win.
Christopher Waldrop
May 20th, 2009
The only reason why it might be hard to parody this ad is that it’s so ridiculous it almost parodies itself. The kids in the ad don’t really seem all that confused.
At the risk of opening a can of worms, though, I’d like to mention something that confused me as a kid: the Book of Genesis. Because, you see, I’d learned about dinosaurs and geology and the age of the Earth, and then people–including some teachers–started telling me that the Earth was really only six-thousand years old and that humans and dinosaurs had once coexisted. For many it happens in reverse: kids are first told that the Bible is infallible and must be read literally, and only later are “confused” when they’re taught the facts.
I see something similar happening here. I don’t know how many NOM members are Creationists, but, like Creationists, they’re trying to force a worldview that’s based on their interpretation of the Bible rather than on facts.
The Lauderdale
May 20th, 2009
I’m pretty sure most NOM members are Creationists. This ad suggests as much.
I remember as a small child, a literalist Biblical story of creation coexisted amiably with dinosaurs, and my concept of time and events in history were very fluid at that age anyway. It was learning about evolution raised questions. When I tried to reconcile neanderthals with Adam and Eve and my mom shrugged and told me that she didn’t believe in Adam and Eve, not really (“I think it’s a story, honey: it’s true in one way, not true in another”), I was scandalized. And so I sat down and tried to come up with theories of my own to make things fit. (Like, Adam and Eve *were* neanderthals and they and their children evolved. Or, neanderthals and dinosaurs are make-believe: fossils are hoaxes planted by God to test our belief – an idea I would discover later that others had used.)
I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this, except to say that kids aren’t passive participants in the learning process. The artificiality of the kids in this ad is that they are isolated in a state of “I’m confuuused.” Kids who are actively taught that gay marriage is bad aren’t going to be “confuuused.” Kids who are actively taught that gay marriage is perfectly fine aren’t going to be “confuuused.” And kids who don’t get told anything one way or another on the subject are either not going to be thinking about it because they’re busy thinking about something else, or are going to be thinking about it and coming up with conclusions of their own.
Ben in Oakland
May 20th, 2009
This is why there must be ads with kids on it– kids of gay parents who love their folks and are confused why someone would not want their parnets to be married.
Clancy
May 20th, 2009
I understand about what children are taught. I was lucky to grow up in a Catholic home where I wasn’t taught that homosexuality was “wrong”; in fact it was never mentioned at all. Consequently, I never had any bad feelings about being gay. I did realize it wasn’t common and later I found out that some people didn’t like it, but by that time I was secure enough in my sexual orientation for that not to bother me beyond wondering why they would even care.
Today, kids have the added advantage of learning, in an age appropriate way, that gay people are not different and there really is nothing wrong with it; it just depends on whether you “agree” with it or not.
I think NOM is actually helping us by showing “confused” children, which just illustrates that we need to do more to educate our young people on who we really are.
Emily K
May 20th, 2009
guys I’m putting something out by tomorrow night.
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