I went to the town hall meeting about gay marriage on July 3 at the gay community center in San Francisco, organized by several gay advocacy organizations and the room was packed full with gay newlyweds, gay activists, gay politicians, gay reporters, and the discussion on defeating California's ballot initiative that would amend the state's constitution and prohibit gay marriage was upbeat about maintaining gay marriage equality.
In my public comment remarks I expressed extreme displeasure with the official campaign signs for our side lining the walls, because the word gay is missing and asked the leaders if we would see gay specific signs before the election. Yes, they said. The signs, by the way, and the stickers and t-shirts with the same closeted message, are from Equality for All, which recently formed to oppose the initiative, and is a coalition of gay and social advocacy organizations.
As always happens with the gay community's campaigns to fight ballot propositions targeting us, our leaders from nonprofit and Democratic clubs have again decided amongst themselves to de-gay the campaign. The rationale is that in not addressing the very real gay angle of the November challenge against same-sex marriage, more voters will vote our way.
And, as always, I get disgusted with the political closetry, bordering on deceiving voters, that says the only way we can win electoral battles is by avoiding use of the word gay in reaching out to the voters. Such a strategy reinforces notions that gays shouldn't wage out of the closet campaigns or that openly gay efforts can prevail with California voters.
The quasi-patriotic sounding group Equality for All, with gay missing from its name, certainly possesses polling and focus group research, and historical voting pattern data, can make a seemingly sound argument for omitting gay from the signs. I believe many voters know the proposition is about a gay marriage ban, not a blanket ban on all marriages, and may see our signs as fudging the truth.
Telling voters to vow, as in a marriage vow, to "Vote No On The Marriage Ban," all too neatly avoids a more truthful slogan, one that would more accurately reflect the fundamental premise of the proposition: "Vote No On The Gay Marriage Ban."
The insightful and fantastic lesbian writer Ann Rostow, in a May column for San Francisco's Bay Times newspaper, wrote of similar concerns regarding a successful campaign to win a victory for gay marriage in the fall.
Rostow posed the follow questions and legitimate concerns:
Ann Rostow has good reasons to be worried and I'm looking forward to reading more of her thoughts on the signs, messages and campaign of Equality for All as we move closer to the election.How are we going to wage this campaign? Are we going to fall back on the poll-driven, cowardly, ineffective and deceptive strategies that have led to huge defeats in marriage campaigns throughout the country? Oh, I know we won Arizona by a point. And that was great. But historically, the gay community’s political experts have led us down a twisted path of avoiding the controversy of same-sex marriage and arguing instead that this or that ballot measure will “discriminate” against us, or prevent happy couples from visiting each other in the hospital.
Such claims are either nonsense or beside the point. Yes, of course a marriage amendment will “discriminate” against gay men and lesbians. It will also prevent same-sex couples from continuing to get married. It will abort the freedom to marry and roll back our hard fought victory, sending us back into the dark ages of domestic partnerships. Dark, after all, is a comparative term. And they do seem like dark ages in the searing light of this incredible decision.
The only way to win this election is to campaign for the continued freedom to marry, using all the genuine and heartfelt arguments that we can muster. The only way to win is to appeal to the goodness and fairness of the California voters, not to treat them like fools. This is an all or nothing battle. If we fight courageously for the right to marriage and lose, we would have lost anyway. What? You think the voters are not going to notice that the right to marry is at stake here? If we fight for some vague principle of equality and lose, we will have defeated ourselves.
Hell, I have no reason to think that our leaders in California are planning to run on fear tactics or looking to avoid the subject of marriage. I only know the dismal history of past elections, including the failed effort during the Prop 22 vote. I haven’t seen or read any campaign strategy, I’m just worried about it, that’s all.
What would be the best slogan to use on signs to drive home the message of gay marriage equality and defeat the hateful proposition?
8 comments:
In this instance, I disagree with Michael Petrelis about the alleged de-gaying of the ballot measure, vis-a-vis the Equality for All slogan, "Vow to Vote No on the Marriage Ban."
Unlike "Oregonians for Fairness" and numerous other attempts to defeat anti-gay ballot initiatives that were de-gayed for political expediency, I very much like the California slogan. It's alliterative, short, and bold.
Also, there's really no such thing as "same-sex marriage." What California has instituted is marriage for same-sex couples. The institution, marriage, hasn't changed. What has changed is that the range of authorized celebrants has expanded.
The initiative clearly wants to promulgate a marriage ban. The official slogan describes that and offers a course of action.
Hopefully, the current litigation at the California Supreme Court, led by the law firm, Heller Ehrman, will make the slogan -- and the election -- moot.
Heller Ehrman argues that the initiative is an attempt to enact a restriction of fundamental rights. As such, the protocol to place such an initiative on the ballot was not adhered to because the initiative's proponents did not first obtain a two-thirds vote in the state legislature. Merely obtaining a plurality of statewide votes should not be enough to restrict a fundamental right. We should know if the Supreme Court agrees in a month or so.
-- Carl Goodman
I don't know whether the slogan will be effective, but it beats feeding into the misnomer of "gay marriage" that you consistently reference as an alternative. I am certainly not going to "gay propose" to my partner, nor do I want to be pronounced "gay married," so why would I want people to vote on a "gay marriage" ban? That seems deceptive. And counter productive. Maybe they could squeeze the word gay or same-sex couples into the slogan somehow (and still fit it on a yard sign) but please don't insist that we have to ask that people let us get "gay married." That we lost the war of symantics with the media, doesn't mean we have to acquiece in the misnomer. That's just gay. In a bad way.
How about this for a slogan? "Let us marry each other and we'll stop marrying you..."
"Gay marriage" is only a fraction of marriages of same-sex couples. It may be a huge fraction, but it is still a fraction.
Egotism tends to erase other identities and practices in the name of so called in-your-face replies to what is perceived as erasing one's own identity.
And don't say "gay" is an umbrella term that also includes gay women and other non-normative identities. Lots of lesbian women would disagree (some would also disagree with Rostow's use of the word as a noun), as well as gender-queer people.
Altough I disagree with the politics behind the de-gaying (treating voters like fools is not very nice) I quite like the fact that no "gay" or "lesbian" erase other same-sex couples who wish to use civil marriage. Queer up!
On a different note I advocate for the ban of civil marriage. Not only it keeps saying that two is better than three (or four or...), it also keeps saying that the state knows best how you and your partner (since partnerS isn't an option) should live your common life. The whole concept is based on the ideas of nuclear family and transmission of property - things that some people may not consider worthy of praise... still, they're stuck with a legal set of rules designed to promote and praise such ideology. So much for one's individual rights, for one's freedom to decide with one's partners who visits who in hospital, how you associate yourself with others to manage the loves, the domestic lives and economies, the time.
It worries me how someone rambles on about the absence of "gay" in this campaign but still (aware of it or not) endorses some of the heterosexist crap behind marriage.
I still prefer my slogan (seen holding it above the head of a fundamentalist from Repent America) which I think ought to be adopted as the official slogan: "Protect Marriage. Ban Divorce."
This is from my friend Peter Cashman in Los Angeles:
Whatever the merits of the massage on these shirts, posters etc it is redundant.
We now have a number for the measure and it is 8. Every message has to say in some way NO ON 8.
Everything else is dabbling in obscurity.
I think the slogan and signage is terrible, and the defense of it simplistic and trite.
While folks are arguing about who is included in 'gay', our opponents are already linking our relationships to beastiality, pedophilia, and incest.
This is about our families, our lives and our humanity. Prop 8 is a direct attack on all three. We need campaign imagery that overtly expresses the human cost of prop 8.
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