The Maine vote on gay marriage was heartbreaking, the kind of vote that makes me wonder whether I even like America anymore, when my values – yes, my moral values – lose more often than they win. I’m not gay, but I know four gay couples with children – one of whom are relatives of mine – and their fight is my fight. What makes it even worse is that we can’t blame it on being outspent, because, like Proposition 8, our side raised more money. In fact, in Maine the balance was heavily on the No on 1 side: $4 million to $2.5 million. And the final tally, in both California and Maine, was almost exactly the same: 53 to 47 percent.
The pain is still so great, and the smart professionals who worked long and hard on this put their heart and soul into it, so I hesitate to bring this up. I’m not a professional political message-maker, but I have to wonder whether the primary campaign message of the Maine gay marriage campaign hurt it more than it helped.
In Maine the side against gay marriage called itself Stand For Marriage. The side for gay marriage was called Protect Maine Equality.
Do you see the problem here?
I’ve been searching for an article I saw on either Salon or Slate that commented approvingly on the way the gay marriage campaign didn’t focus on gay or marriage but on equality and Maine’s "independent" streak, its right to go its own way. Sorry, but I beg to differ.
This was exactly the same framing (yes, it’s an overused word, but here it fits) that was used by both sides in the fight over Proposition 8. The main anti-gay-marriage group was called Protect Marriage.com. (One of its campaign signs, showing a cute little straight family of four against a background of sunshine yellow, read "Yes on 8. Restore Marriage" ) The pro-gay marriage side? Equality for All.
Does this make sense? This allows the other side to claim that they are the ones "for" marriage while the gay marriage side is "for" equality. It creates a dichotomy: Are you for marriage, or equality?
Which side do you think will win?
This is so nonsensical, because, for heaven’s sake, who is more for marriage than the gay couples who want to get married? Just as in the abortion battle, when the anti-abortion forces successfully changed the culture to buy the idea that an 8-week old fetus "could be" an actual human being (no matter how the pregnant woman feels about it), they sell the concept that depriving gays of the right to marry somehow protects marriage. And they get away with it because we don’t have a strong enough message to counter it.
It's time to forget about equality, and forget about "rights." It’s time to frame any future gay marriage campaigns around the idea that "a vote for gay marriage is a vote FOR marriage."
Take a moment to wrap your mind around that idea. What if the Maine campaign had been based around the message "Vote No on 1/Vote Yes For Marriage?" What if the website was NoOn1Yes4Marriage.com?
I looked up webelieveinmarriage.com, .org and .net and unfortunately they’re owned by the Association of Christian Counselors. They haven’t done anything with it in five years, and if they were truly Christian counselors they would give it away to gay marriage groups, except I’m sure they’d be terrified of the fatwa that would be decreed against them if they did that. But I propose that all future gay marriage campaigns should be built around the concept of "We Believe in Marriage."
Imagine a commercial, showing, one by one, straight couples standing up – old, young, rich, poor, saying "We believe in marriage" "We believe in marriage" "We believe in marriage" – followed then by a few straight couples with children, their children standing with them: "We believe in marriage" – followed then by a gay couple, gay couple, straight couple, gay couple with children, gay couple with children, straight couple with children: "We believe in marriage" "We believe in marriage" – until you have a roomful of people of all ages and races and classes, straight and gay, and all the adults saying, "We believe in marriage." Follow this by a woman narrator naming the positive benefits of marriage and ending by saying "Vote No on 1. Vote Yes for Marriage."
Of course, this won’t stop the other side from countering with fear tactics. Of course, a campaign based on this message is not guaranteed to win. But a national message campaign, kept up year after year after year, that says that a vote for gay marriage is a vote for marriage will eventually change the very words that go through people’s heads. If you don’t believe me, look at what the Republicans accomplished with messages that didn’t even make sense!
Another thing: the people who care about equality and giving other people equal rights probably are going to vote for gay marriage already. The only people who will swing from the anti to the pro side on this basis are those who feel a particular empathy for a particular gay couple they know.
But for the other anti gay-marriage people, a gay marriage campaign should emphasize responsibility and stability. People who are against gay marriage are afraid of change. When people are afraid of change, what do they need to feel? Safe. Safety is the most basic psychological need for everyone. A gay marriage commercial must link gay marriage to safety, security, stability and responsibility. And how hard can this be to do? After all, isn’t this a lot of what marriage is all about?
A great irony is that straight marriage is truly in trouble in much of America today. Among the working class, those with a high school education or less who work at low-end retail jobs, marriage is becoming a luxury. Children are living with their mother and her boyfriend, who may or may not be their father. Among the middle-middle class, people with 12 - 15 years of education, serial marriage is becoming the norm (and family trees look more like a bush, with stepsiblings and ex-stepsiblings connected in all different directions). Only among the educated and highly educated is it still the norm to have marriages lasting long enough to raise a family of children – and these people are waiting until almost 30 for their first marriages.
It’s the loss of marriage, and the loss of stability in life in general, that the anti gay-marriage forces work so hard and so effectively to emotionally link to gay marriage. The high-minded and rational appeal to fair mindedness in an Equality for All campaign can’t possibly compete with that because the people it appeals to most are those who already feel pretty secure in the world, who are already on our side.
So before the next heartbreak, especially when the anti gay marriage forces now think they have a winning formula and are ready to turn back the clock everywhere they can, can somebody in the know, someone smart and well-connected, please get it? Forget the high-mindedness, forget the head, downplay the empathy. Go to where people’s needs and fears are. Counter the other side’s story line and co-opt it until their reptilian brains spin. Change the way people think, and you change their position. A vote for gay marriage is a vote for marriage. Pass it on.
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john blumenthal
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
Sickening
For one they are losing...that's wrong, especially since there is no reason they should lose.
In my mind, the biggest problem they (the campaigns) face is not that more people are against gay marriage than support it; it is that the campaigns don't do enough to ensure that the vote reflects the real sentiment.
The campaigns have two major problems to overcome:
1. Demographics. Seniors are more likely to vote in any election/plebiscite than the younger generation. Seniors are also more likely to be against gay marriage than the younger generation.
2. Those against gay marriage are not necessarily stronger in their convictions but they do see (or have been scared into seeing) the issue as being more urgent and demanding of action. Their thought is “I’ve got to do something about this threat”. Supporters of gay marriage see it as a non-issue. Their thought is “yes of course everyone should have that right, it’s a no brainer”. This difference in attitude translates into a huge difference in action (i.e. voting).
The campaigns must find a better way to turn their supporters into voters, since it appears that the efforts to change the minds of their oppressors is futile.
So, a few thoughts --
1. I read a very interesting post on OS last year. The post described the family situation of a gay man who was married in Canada. In addition to being married, he and his partner both have unmarried lovers living with them. Upon doing some research I found that such situations are not at all uncommon, and that a large percentage of gays in long-term relationships, around 75 percent, are not monogamous. I read this not on Focus on the Family but on a number of gay web sites, in which gays openly discussed their relationships. In the gay community monogamy is an issue of some debate; some gays have "redefined" monogamy to include "three-ways," "nights-off," and so on. In discussions with several gay OS members they made it quite clear to me that while they want the same right to marriage that heteros have, they don't want the same "thing" that heteros have -- namely monogamy. In the GLBT community monogamy is sometimes even referred to as "patriarchal" and "heterosexist."
In other words, what I discovered is that gay sexuality is very different from hetero sexuality. While there are a few hetero "swingers," very few hetero married couples include adultery as a normal and desirable part of their relationships. It is true that some hetero married couples commit adultery, but in the hetero community that is largely seen as a moral failure.
To the extent that monogamy is not valued in the gay community, I think marriage is not a very good "fit" for them. It doesn't mean that they are evil, just they many of them have a view of sexuality that is incompatible with what in our culture is considered to be traditional marriage.
Speaking of which, traditional marriage is a monogamous relationship between two adults, one male and one female. If we eliminate the male and female aspect, then what exactly is the reason for retaining the two-person aspect? In other words, once gay marriage is widespread, the next people standing in line will be the folks in various kinds of poly-relationships. And why not? If the sole criterion for marriage is love, and three or four or five people all love each other, then why not poly-marriage?
Eventually we end up with a situation in which marriage is totally unrecognizable from what it is today, or perhaps doesn't even exist. And this is the exact position of the supporters of Beyond Marriage, whose stated goal is to remove marriage from its "privileged" position. For Beyond Marriage virtually any kind of relationship configuration, conjugal or not, would be seen as morally equal to marriage, including "Queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with another queer person or couple, in two households." Or three households. Or four.
Beyond Marriage is a small group but not a fringe group, and many academics, authors, and other influential people are members, including Dr. Chai Feldblum, nominated by president Obama to be an EEOC commissioner.
2. The other interesting aspect is that for many gay activists gay marriage is only one small issue, with the larger goal the elimination of what is called "heteronormativity." Heteronormativity is simply the idea that heterosexual relationships are the norm, and that they are the most important to society.
Activists would like to see heteronormativity pass away, being replaced by the idea that virtually any sexual activity or orientation is normal, and that heterosexual relationships are no better then any other kind of relationship. This would require a radical change in thinking, and the best way to do that would be in schools. Thus, we have "Queering Elementary Education," a book of essays describing educational techniques that can eliminate heteronormativity in elementary schools, the forward to which was written by Kevin Jennings, another Obama nominee.
While many in the GLBT community no doubt want nothing more than to be legally married, many of the activists have a much larger program in mind, that will affect many areas of society other than marriage.
I could go on, but you get the point. I think that gay marriage, on the face seemingly insignificant, would eventually lead to a very different kind of society, and I think that is a common view of many of its opponents. Those in favor of gay marriage see it as leading to . . . well, gay marriage, and nothing more. I think that's why the opponents are more likely to go to the barricades over the issue than the proponents.
I couldn’t have asked for a better example of my point than mishima’s essay. The gay marriage opposition has their herd following in lock step, regurgitating the straw man arguments, the anecdotal evidence, the slippery slope bogeyman and the hidden agenda.
They frame the argument that society will lose rights instead of the reality that some will simply gain the same rights that others already have.
The lesson must be learned from their tactics though. They have been very effective at creating the fear and the fear has translated to votes.
Similarly effective (although I would argue not similarly duplicitous) methods must be employed to get out the vote on the side of equal rights for all.
But I'm not part of any "herd." I am a liberal on most economic issues, and a conservative on many social issues.
First, the agenda is not hidden. It is completely open, and easily available to anyone who is interested. Second, slippery-slope arguments are not automatically wrong; sometimes there is a slippery slope. I notice that you didn't happen to address any of the arguments I made, though they are very brief so as to fit into a comment.
Mark: "They frame the argument that society will lose rights instead of the reality that some will simply gain the same rights that others already have."
No, my argument is that we could end up with a very different kind of society. I agree with the gay activists that we have a heteronormative culture. They think that's bad; I think it's good. But if we do away with heteronormative culture, with what is it replaced? We don't really know. We don't really know which slippery slopes we might go down, which anecdotes might become the norm, which bogeymen might prove to be real.
I see same-sex marriage and efforts to undermine heteronormativity as grand social experiments, the outcome of which would be uncertain and unpredictable. Personally I think the outcome would not be good, but I cannot conclude that with certainty. Nonetheless, we often have to make decisions on the basis of imperfect information, and I come down on the side of the status quo -- with the provision that I support civil unions and the existing rights that people in the GLBT community have.
Concerning how "your side" can convince people to vote for gay marriage, I have only one suggestion: come up with better arguments. With a U.S. win/loss record of 0 to 31, perhaps the problem is not with the opposition but with the "home team."
The pro-gay-marriage side is extremely good at calling their opponents names and ridiculing them. With a record of 0-31, might I suggest that this is not a very good strategy? As they say in soccer, play the ball, not the man.
If you walk like the herd, talk like the herd and argue like the herd, I hope you can’t blame me for thinking you may be part of the herd.
Your “point” about monogamy in the gay community is unsubstantiated and a non sequitur. Which percentage of non-monogamous gays want to get married? What is the rate of monogamy among those who do want to get married? What is your monogamy threshold for acceptance into marriage?
The attack on “heteronormative” culture is a straw man argument. You know that is not what is being fought for. The fact that any fringe element has other agendas is true of any organization. It would be just as fair to argue that the anti gay marriage constituency is really fighting for the stoning of gays because among them are a few biblical literalists. In other words bullshit.
The slippery slope argument is no argument at all, as you’ve basically admitted in your last comment “We don't really know which slippery slopes we might go down”. I would go so far as to say you know it’s a fallacy since you haven’t offered any appreciable set of transitions from this change to any other.
Finally I must say you completely missed my point. No “better arguments” are needed. My point was that the support is already present in the populace but that the anti campaign (largely using the fear tactics learned from their right wing Christian component) has been vastly more effective at getting the vote out.