What they did, as they did in California last year, was to shift the argument to education and "the children." That's a combination that bypasses all rational thought processes and goes right to the limbic system.
Jim Burroway called it:
Nobody Cares About Same-Sex Marriage
Oh, sure, people care about it. Everyone has an opinion about same-sex marriage. But nobody cares about in the sense that it is something that just doesn’t affect them.
Sure, virtually everyone who is gay and out cares. That’s about 4% of the population, and maybe not even that much in Maine. And the anti-gay religious right cares about it also, for whatever personal stake they’ve managed to take in it. That’s a much higher percentage, but it’s not even close to being a majority.
For everyone else, same-sex marriage is just not on their radar. And if they do care, it doesn’t rise to the level of other things they care about more and are willing to invest more of their attention to: education, taxes, health insurance, the economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those are the things people care about and are willing to invest their own personal attention and energy to. They care enough to learn more about these things because one way or another, they all touch on them personally. As Schubert’s research revealed:
“At the end of the day, people vote on issues based on how they think it will impact them and their families. We spent a great deal of time trying to understand what impacts could we develop that would work. Communication has to be aimed at and appeal to those self interests of the electorate.”
And people don’t see how same-sex marriage will impact them and their families — especially not enough to pay attention to the issue and go out and vote in an off-year election on someone else’s problem. This, by the way, is just as much a problem for the “Yes” side as it is for the “No” side. So how do you fix it?
The problem is that we've been fighting defensive campaigns. To a certain extent, there's no way around it, because the right is very good at framing these things in their terms. From what I've seen, the ads in Maine for the "Yes" side didn't talk about marriage -- they talked about the schools. And, of course, they were full of misrepresentations.
The only way I can see counter this is to go in hard and nasty -- tell the truth, but don't pull any punches and don't try to be nice about it. We know our opponents are going to lie. So the thing for us to do is call them on it before the lies start -- tell people that they're going to lie, they're going to try to dodge the real issues, they're going to try to scare them -- and then publicize every lie, every distortion, every misrepresentation, every scare tactic -- and forget the tone of sweet reason. We've seen what being the best little boys and girls in the world gets us -- shat on. Yell "Liar!" and then back it up with the truth -- but if you don't yell first, you're not going to get anyone's attention.
And don't worry about the likes of Matt Barber and Peter LaBarbera calling us names. They're going to anyway.
Another thought: You're going to hear a lot from the right-wing nasties about how "all 31 states where voters have spoken have rejected gay marriage." Yes, they have. And I'll challenge any of them to hold up an example of any civil rights issue in the history of this country that won at the polls. Women's suffrage? Minority voting rights? Non-discrimination in housing and jobs? Interracial marriage? No? You mean, if the people had been allowed to vote, those things wouldn't have happened? You damn betcha.
That's why we have a Bill of Rights and courts to defend it. Because the people won't. Most of the people don't even know what's in it.
So ask them about those issues when they hold up "the will of the people." It's a bullshit argument from the get-go.
5 comments:
Thank you for pointing out that we've been too nice. Not one of the ads I saw called out the liars on the anti-gay side; not one pointed to a lie and labelled it as one; not one went on the offensive and reminded people that the issue was not about anything BUT civil marriage. If there's one lesson I, too, hope we take form our defeats it's that it really is time to put away the velvet gloves and come out with the iron fist.
The "be nice" syndrome is right up there with "be patient." No. No more. We've seen it bring us defeat after defeat, and (obligatory swipe at the national rights groups) what we get from our "leadership" is press releases noting how disappointed they are. And then they go off to another cocktail party.
We're going to have the same fight here (a marriage bill introduced in the state senate, civil unions in the house), except that it's going to be lobbying -- Illinois only has advisory referenda, and Peter LaBarbera's record on those is abysmal -- last time, he couldn't even get enough fake signatures. I've half a mind to get involved.
PS -- on LaBarbera, the time before last, when enough of his signature were disqualify to torpedo his petition, he sued to have Illinois' election laws overturned. Sound familiar?
Tried to overturn Illinois' elections laws . . . just like NOM is trying to evade Maine's election laws by suing to keep its donor base hidden. Which, of course, would take an activist judge to rule in their favor. Not that they have anything against activist judges -- as long as they activate in the "moral" direction.
And whatever the organization in Washington trying to repeal the domestic partnership law is named is trying to do the same there with petition signers.
Have you noticed the penchant for secrecy on the right?
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